In the Debris
by BelieveItOrNot
Summary: A story of unlikely friends, a story of family, a search for truth and a search of self. "She's everyone else's Isabella, but she's only my Bella." "I write a poem about a boy and girl who fall in love in the eye of a tornado." AH E/B V/J
1. Footprints

Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight

**In the Debris** is rated M for mature content.

This story alternates perspectives between Edward and Victoria. It is an Edward/Bella and Victoria/James story, and this is my take on human Victoria and James as teenagers. Flawed, but not evil.

Also, I will be taking some liberties with the town of Forks. It's still the small forest town you're probably used to, though.

I hope you give it a try. :)

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><p><strong>In the Debris <strong>

**Footprints**

**Edward**

My sheets are soaked with sweat and I'm shivering. Too cold. Too hot. It's unpredictable which mornings I'll wake up to this, although for the past week it's been daily.

Dreams of my mother.

In these dreams, she's healthy with a face painted in makeup. She's happy, cooking Max and me breakfast, wishing us well for school, reminding me of my curfew, warning me to treat the girls right.

I'm aware of the dream-state before I'm fully awake, and in the deep, dark space before the light comes in, she dies all over again - face fading to ash, skin going cold.

And with the light comes her voice.

_Edward_, she said yesterday morning, _come her_e.

_Edward_, she says this morning, _be good_.

And my eyes open.

Is that it? Is that what she said just before she fell? I'll never know, but this will haunt me forever.

I smash my face into my pillow - the only evidence I ever cry.

I tear my sheets off my bed, throwing them in a pile by my front door for Jane - our housekeeper and now cook - to take care of later. My pillow case is next. I rub it rough over my face and then toss it with the rest of the crumpled mess on the floor.

After I shower, I try to comb my hair, but the waves keep it from doing anything. I let it go on its own, even if it stands on end. Then I wander to my pint-size kitchen to make my own breakfast. From here, at the far end of the pool house, you can see the entire length of the place. Sofa, sitting area, stripped bed next to that, and then the only room with a door, the bathroom.

The last thing I do before leaving the pool house is check my wallet for the newspaper article. It's there and I can go.

_Be good._

I push the dream words deep down before I open the door. All those words, the dreams, they'll stay in the pool house. The article - her article - always comes with me, wherever I go.

I enter the main house knowing I won't run into my dad or Esme. He leaves for the hospital at about the crack of dawn, and Esme sleeps in. Whatever, that's fine. I'd sleep in, too, if I didn't have school.

I check the kitchen counter and spot the stack of bills. There's more than enough in my wallet, but I take the stack anyhow. I can't say it isn't the possibility of cash that has me traipsing through the house in the morning instead of walking around the outside to the front. But honestly, if I don't take it, Esme will, and as far as I'm concerned, my mother's bed is more than she deserves.

At times, I do feel sorry for Esme since it's clear she isn't much more than a trophy for my father. If he could, he'd display her on a glass shelf, I'm sure. But from what I understand, she knows that. She salivates over his money and his crowd, so my sympathy for her is not long-lived.

I remember the sympathetic stares and whispers aimed at me during the funeral. How my dad and Esme's relationship started before my mom's death. _How long_, came a whisper._ Months_, came another. _Years_, came yet another.

_What relationship?_ I remember thinking. I'd never met Esme.

I couldn't let myself believe those whispers, and did not want to hear it confirmed by anyone.

I would've killed my father.

Esme turned out to be real and my father's still alive, working his damnedest to feel important, and maybe he is. As a surgeon, he certainly saves enough lives. Not his first wife's, though. Where was he when she collapsed? With Esme?

Important or not, to me, he's just a man who gives me a roof and leaves hundred dollar bills on the counter every so often. Other than that, I want nothing to do with him, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual.

I can't count on a day or dollar amount. Sometimes it's one hundred, other times several hundred, and other times the counter's empty. It's as if he just pinches a clump from whatever happens to be in his wallet at the time and tosses it aside like loose change. That's what it is, really, in comparison to most families in Forks, who might be searching under couch cushions for loose change rather than tossing hundreds around.

I meet Max at the front of the house. He's all I have left in this family. My dad no longer counts.

"Hey Bro," he says with a smile, and I scruff up his hair.

"Let's go."

In the car, he complains. "The Mustang? It's so loud. Everyone will look."

"It's a classic. Let them look."

As always, I have to remind him of his seatbelt as we travel down the twists of the forest drive.

"Bro?" he asks after he buckles in. I have to stifle a laugh every time he calls me "Bro." He's just recently taken to calling me that. At thirteen, I'm sure it makes him feel older, like a real teen. I try not to let him see me laugh. "Do you get nervous on the first day of school?"

"Nope. Do you?" I look over at him with a frown. What reason does he have for nerves? He's known most of these kids since preschool.

"Me neither."

I used to live down the hall from Max, on the top floor of the main house. It's a room with a balcony that pushes itself neck-and-neck with some of the fir trees. But I took over the back pool house as soon as I turned eighteen, last June.

I met no parental resistance when I moved out there. I didn't expect to. Hell, I didn't even ask permission. I wanted my own space, so I packed up everything I owned and moved it on out. Since I lost my mother, I've taken free reign over my life, unwilling to be shaped by my father into becoming my father.

He calls my actions ignorant, calls me an ingrate, and threatens to stop leaving money for me.

He has yet to stop the money; he still expects Ivy League; he tries to enforce his rules, although it's impossible to see them through when he's never around.

Esme kind of tries every once in a while, too - "Edward, would your father approve?" - but that's a joke. She gets nothing but a laugh out of me, not even a stifled one.

I moved out of the main house just after my father remarried. Yes, my father remarried within the same year his wife died. To be exact, he remarried within three months of her death. But who's keeping track? I'm fairly certain that I'm the only one in the world, aside from Max, who misses my mother. And even I have to pretend I don't miss her because nobody, _nobody_, wants to hear an eighteen year old guy whining about missing mommy.

To get to Max's school, or just about anywhere in Forks, you have to drive through the main street of town, which lines the waterfront. The river is a long one, wider in some places, and follows the length of the town, breaking off into creeks and streams all over the place. There's this one bag lady you'll probably see hanging out in front of one of the buildings. I don't know where she goes during winter, but there are rumors she's actually rich and has a big house somewhere. I don't know. She smells like urine when you pass her.

Most of the buildings on Main Street are aged, built of wood that's near-rotting. A couple of the buildings have been kept up and painted. The barber shop, for one, is all white with one of those old-fashioned striped poles out front. Through the month of September, there's an actual barber shop quartet singing outside the door. As you walk in or out, they like to make eye contact with you while they're singing. It's embarrassing.

I drop Max off at school, reaching over his shoulder to give him an arm hug before I let him go. I know he likes that even if he pretends not to. I just want the kid to be happy.

"Bro," he says. "Not cool." But he's smiling. He can't hide that smile even when he wants to. Never could.

"Why don't you skip a few grades and come to my school, bud? You'll be the coolest one there, no doubt."

"By the time I get there, you'll be gone," he says.

I ruffle up his hair again. It's a lot like mine and when I take my hand away, the hair is stuck in the messed up way I've left it. His fingers rake through it, smoothing. I don't say anything else and he lets himself out.

Lately I've been thinking I won't do that. Leave him. Someone's got to look out for him. I let the names of local colleges run through my mind again, and while nothing stands out as stellar, leaving him with the father we're stuck with and his wife doesn't sound so stellar, either.

I watch until Max blends in with the crowd and I no longer see him. It bothers me, though, that he walks all the way in to campus by himself - doesn't greet or get greeted by anybody.

He's not invisible. What's going on with him?

I take off for Forks High, and while I was telling my little brother the truth when I said I wasn't nervous, I'd still rather be heading anywhere else.

I hit shuffle, turn the stereo volume up and gun the accelerator. My thoughts are unnecessary.

In the parking lot I push my sunglasses on despite the overcast sky. No need for eye contact with anyone.

But most of them haven't seen me all summer so I'm out of my mind if I think I'll be left alone. As I pass, some girls touch my arm or pat my chest. Some guys nod my way. If any of them are smiling, I don't know - I'm not looking.

Alice is first to try to stop me, all four feet whatever of her. She's on her toes, like she'll kiss my cheek, but I don't give and she can't reach, so, like others, she pats my shoulder.

"How ya doing? We never see you anymore."

_Because I don't party anymore,_ I should say.

"I'm fine."

"Have you met Isabella, yet?"

"Who?"

"Isabella, the new girl."

"Never heard of her."

Alice speeds up to keep in pace with me. I stare straight ahead as I notice Lauren making her way toward me in my peripheral. At least Alice's presence will keep her away for the time being. I slow down so Alice doesn't have to work as hard to keep up.

"Well, if you bothered leaving your house ever, maybe you would have."

I stop, turn to look at her. "Okay, who's Isabella?" I figure maybe I've been a little too rude. Judging from her tone of voice, she isn't likely to take much more of it.

"She's great. _So_ much fun. We've hung out with her over the summer." I don't like the way she overemphasizes "so" as if it has way more "o's" than it does. It makes me not trust what she's saying, like she wants me to believe it too much. I figure it's part of a guilt trip for my avoiding them all summer. "Everyone loves her already. You'll see."

"Can't wait." I continue forward.

"Edward?" She's still stopped behind me. And I know that inflection. Here comes the real reason she's approached me. "I need a favor."

"Spit it out." I'm already reaching for my back pocket, assuming she's going to ask to borrow money, in which case she knows I won't ask her to pay me back. I'm wrong.

"This is a friend thing, okay? Can you…" She waves her hand to motion me closer. I abide, taking a few steps and lean down for her.

She whispers, "I'm pretty sure I know Jasper likes me. So why won't he give me the time of day?"

"Jasper likes you? More than a friend?"

"Shh!" She's waving her hand again, faster this time. "I think so, but he won't talk to me about it."

"Alice." I put my hand on her shoulder this time, partly as an apology for being so aloof before, partly because I don't get how she can think Jasper likes her. "You've seen his sketchbook. I don't think he likes anybody. Not like that. He gets laid. That's Jasper."

"Can't you talk to him for me?"

"What would I say? The last time I saw him was the last time I saw you."

"You haven't seen him since your party? Really?"

"It was your party, remember? It just happened to be at my house because you wouldn't let up about it."

My father about had a coronary after that party. He said he was putting his foot down once and for all. I laughed at him and reminded him that his foot could only be where he was. The reason I agreed to stop partying was because I didn't want to. He didn't know this, but I spent most of the night of Alice's party in the pool house playing video games. Parties were not for me anymore.

Alice ignores my comment. "If that's really the last time you've… well, he's changed since then."

"That fast?"

"Why not? You've changed, too." She hits my arm, but it's her tone of voice that stings.

"Talk to him, Alice. That's all I can say." I try to walk again, but she takes my arm.

"Won't you just ask him what he thinks of me? It's not that hard. I know you can say it in a way that won't make it look like it came from me."

"I'll see what I can do."

"I knew I could count on you! You're the only one." It seems she's about to try kissing my cheek again, but stops herself. I kiss hers. I feel bad for how I treated her. Things may be different between us, but we do have a past full of years as friends.

Having taken care of what she set out for, she takes off. Not even a "see ya later" or a glance back at me. I no longer feel guilty for my treatment of her.

In the building, I can't miss it when Lauren spots me.

"Edward, Edward, Edward. You're looking hot as always." She pokes my side.

"What's up?" I move past her. She follows. I listen to the sound of slamming lockers, the murmurs of the first-day-of-school crowd, instead of her voice. I'm relieved when, in her rambles, she tells me her first class is Algebra. We'll be heading in different directions at the next turn.

"Oh, god." She grabs hold of my arm. "Fire and ice alert." Lauren, never one for tact, points to the couple standing a few feet away.

James and Victoria.

I catch Victoria glance in our direction and wave to her. This gets under Lauren's skin like a tick, burrowing. Victoria looks at me like I've just caught a bad case of face warts, but waves back. James, next to her, pulls his hood up. Rumor has it, if the hood is up, he's carrying. I happen to know there's some validity to that one.

"I don't get you, Edward," Lauren says. "You're not at all picky about who you're friendly with."

"I don't let rumors dictate my life."

This silences her for the time being, and I can continue on to class unbothered. Inside, Jasper and Emmett look up but don't wave me over like they might have done last year. I move toward their desks at the back of the room and ready myself for friendly behavior and explanations for why I've been so AWOL.

Nothing is like it used to be.

I wish I could get out of Forks.

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><p><strong>VICTORIA<strong>

_All the colors of Autumn_, my mom used to say - dressing me, combing my wet hair. _My beautiful girl._

Her voice. What did her voice sound like? I can remember her saying those words, but not the sound of her voice. I try, but the only voice I hear in my mind is my own.

I remember what she looks like: Red hair, not like flames, not like mine, but lighter, though not as light as Aunt Cheri's coppery blonde. Somewhere in the middle, like melting caramel.

And blue eyes. Clear sea, cerulean blue, just like Aunt Cheri's. I didn't get those eyes. Mine are brown - though not even a normal brown; they are too gold for that. James likened my eyes to a lion's once. An animal. I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. He swears he meant it as a compliment.

And she was skinny. Skin and bones, much _un_like Aunt Cheri, whose squishy lap I remember sitting on far more than my mom's.

And her smile. She smiled a lot, big white teeth - whiter than pearls, but a chipped tooth in front. She smiled wide, anyway - at least with me.

I have fifteen minutes before I leave for school, enough time to start a poem. I scribble about melting caramel hair that drips and sticks, abyss-like and pupil-less eyes of the sea. I write about how eyes without pupils hold no soul. I write about the way breath and secrets sneak through the chips in teeth with every smile.

I don't know if she still smiles. I haven't seen her in eleven years, and I've lived these last twelve years with my Aunt Cheri and Uncle Phil, even though my mom is still out there, somewhere, in the world.

The memories I've shared of my mom, the fact that I want to remember her, might make it appear that I love her. I don't. I remember the day that began my loss of love for her.

In the morning, I still loved her.

On the Arizona school yard, the flick of a finger called me over. "Victoria, sweetie, Mrs. Shelley needs to talk to you."

My whole hand fit into Mrs. Shelley's palm. Mrs. Shelley, my kindergarten teacher, her hand closed over mine, like a shell encasing a clam. I remember the heat of the sun and the long denim skirt she wore that day. And her blouse, a lighter blue than the sky, it billowed in the breeze. If I peered up at her face then, I don't recall doing so.

"Let's have a seat." She patted the playground bench beside her as if I were a puppy. I obeyed, toying with my braid, the curls at the end. My mom had braided it. I checked back over my shoulder. From where we sat, just off the playground, I could no longer see my friends riding on trikes or reaching across monkey bars.

"I found something in your cubby today," her whisper of a voice told me. "Do you know what it was?"

I shrugged. Was this a guessing game? My school work and my lunchbox were in my cubby, and my naptime bear. Not a change of clothes, though, like the rules said. Maybe that's what she meant. Did she find my clothes?

"It was a small plastic tube." She showed me with her fingers the size she meant.

I swung my legs. I wanted to go back and play. "So?"

"Are you saying you didn't know it was in there?"

"What was in there?"

"The tiny plastic tube."

"Mommy's medicine?"

"It's your mom's? It was mostly empty, sweetie. Did you take any medicine?"

I shook my head. I wasn't allowed to take her medicine. I'd stolen it, though, so she couldn't take it, either.

"There's a police officer here who would like to ask you about it. Would you like to meet a real policeman?"

I followed her denim skirt to the office where there stood a real live policeman. He was smiling and not scary. I looked up at him with an open mouth. In my memory, the policeman has the kind of ever-changing face of a stranger in a poorly-remembered dream.

He exchanged faceless whispered words with my teacher and another teacher came in with my big bear, but I knew it couldn't be naptime because we hadn't had lunch yet. We weren't allowed our napping buddies before naptime. I took him with me to the too-big chair facing the desk, where they told me to sit, and I squeezed him, even if it was against the rules. I liked these chairs. I couldn't touch the floor and my feet swung. I could get them high. It hurt my knees a little.

I stopped swinging them when the policeman knelt in front of me. He showed me my mom's medicine holder.

"Are you sure this is your mother's?"

"Does she know I took it? Is she mad at me?"

"She isn't mad. Would you like to see her? I'd like you to come with me, and I'll take you to her."

"Her work?"

"No, she's not at work, she's with the police, and I'd like to take you to her. Will you come with me?"

I reached out and grabbed hold of Mrs. Shelley's skirt. It didn't feel like anything I could hold onto for long. It would slip right out of my fingers. She knew I wasn't supposed to go with strangers, though. She told me that. She'd tell him I couldn't go.

"It's okay, Victoria. I'll walk you to the nice officer's car."

I wasn't sure what to do. I would have liked to sit in the office chair and wait for my mom to come get me. But even Mrs. Shelley thought I should go with the policeman. She took my hand and walked with me to the parking lot where the police car was parked right in front. The door was open for me, but I stood there, still holding Mrs. Shelley's hand - either her hand was sweating or mine was.

"You can sit in the front with me," the policeman said. There was a booster seat.

"Go on in…" Mrs. Shelley said, giving me a gentle nudge. I didn't move.

"Come with me," I said to Mrs. Shelley.

"Your teacher can't come with you. She has her class here. But you may bring your bear, and there's another really nice policeman at the station. He'll make you and your bear laugh."

I gazed up at Mrs. Shelley. She nodded at me. And she was smiling, but it was a weird smile because she looked like she was crying, too.

The face she was making scared me so I got into the car. When the door closed, my tears fell on my bear.

Late that night, really late, in my aunt's car, I made up my first poem in my head. It was about a penguin family who ate each other. Nothing was left when they were done.

Even though all of that with my mom happened back in Phoenix, everyone at Forks High knows about it, though the only one who truly cares is now waiting outside my front door. I grab my backpack and leave the house, ignoring my uncle as usual, and kissing my aunt's cheek goodbye.

James is standing outside of his old Acura, blacker than a night with a hidden moon. He hugs me up tight when I approach him. He doesn't hug me with every greeting, but he will always hug me every year on this date.

My arms wrap his waist with a sigh.

He's wearing his faded_ The Who_ shirt under his unzipped sweater. His hair is like wheat and seems to move just as easily, draping his eyebrows. I don't think they're the kind of eyes that should ever be covered. I move his hair for him.

"Don't hide your blues."

"Ready?"

"Let's skip today."

"Not today. You know that only makes it worse for you. Everyone'll know why you skipped."

I join him in his car and sulk as if I'm still that five year old traveling to the police station. "I'm really not in the mood for all of them today." The first two days of school were bad enough, but today - I don't want to think about what they'll say. "And I especially do not want to see them fawning all over that new girl when they're being hideous to me."

"It's not her fault. She's not bad, you know?"

I groan. "Not you, too!"

He takes off and to my disappointment, he's heading toward school. I could force him to let me out, but I have nowhere to go for eight hours alone, nor do I want to be alone.

"How do you even know her?"

"She's in my psych class."

He's lucky. She's in three of my classes. She smiles too much, like she wants to be friends, but she doesn't know about me yet. She will. I won't make another friend just to lose her.

I sit quietly for the next five minutes and let him blast his rock music. Then I shut it off and face him.

"James, let's get high first. I know you have some." I grab at his sweater pocket. He nudges my hand away.

Looking at me out of the corner of his eye, he gives me half a smile. "Stop believing rumors."

"Shut up. I could've started that rumor." I reach for his pocket again.

"It's not in there," he says, pushing me away with his elbow. "Really think today is a good day to get high?"

"Really think it isn't?"

James looks at me fully now. "Okay, but we'll smoke out at lunch. I can't miss my first class."

"Psych?" I eye him.

The way everyone stares at me at school every year on this day makes me wonder if they all don't mark it on their calendars. Then I see Lauren, who's smiling and waving at me, and I remember it only takes one person to mark her calendar.

Lauren and I used to be best friends, all the way up until middle school, when people started thinking I was odd. Who knows why - it may have simply been due to my frizzy red hair. Lauren wants everyone to like her, she's always been that way, so she turned her back on me. She couldn't be seen with the "weird" one. And she was extra mean to prove we weren't, and never had been, friends. She also gave away my worst secret, everything I'd told her about my mom, deeming me a crack baby, all to gain more popularity.

"What's the matter, Victoria?" Lauren asks now, blocking the entrance to the school. Nobody can get by her, nor will anyone ask her to move. People around laugh. I see spiky-haired Mike laughing as though Lauren is the next big comedienne. "You look like you're about to cry. This worries me." She tilts her blonde head at me as if she's concerned.

"Knock it off, Mallory," James says. "Leave her alone."

"Ooh." Her eyes flutter rapid fake-lashed blinks at him. "What are you planning to do, ya big, strong man?"

"Get out of her way," another voice comes from behind me. I know without looking that it's Edward Cullen, but even if I didn't recognize his voice, I would know it's him by the way Lauren listens to what he says, moves aside, and apologizes.

"Sorry. I was kidding. Vicky can take a joke, can't you, old friend?" She pinches my cheek.

I pull my face away.

Before entering the building, I turn to look at Edward. He smiles at me. And that isn't the first time he's smiled at me. On the first day of school he did the same thing, even waving, but I thought it was a mistake, like he was waving to someone behind me. This smile, however, is most definitely directed at me.

While Edward and his small cliquish crowd never really added to my humiliation, they also never made any effort to be my friend or stick up for me. This is new.

"Thanks," I say, and look away.

"Sure."

I turn back to him, a puzzled frown taking over my face.

"What?" he asks.

"People aren't always as they seem…"

"I know." His smile fades.

James holds the door for me, and I let whatever that was with Edward dissipate with the past.

Edward doesn't forget it, apparently. He catches up with me as I'm on my way to meet James at his car for lunch.

"Are you okay?" he asks. "I mean with today being what it is."

We're walking toward the parking lot and stop at the edge of the sidewalk.

I tilt my head, still perplexed by him. He's wearing sunglasses so I can't see his eyes, though I know they're dark. I look at his mouth for a hint of a smile, a hint he might be joking with me. His head turns to the side for a second as he runs a pale hand through his dark hair.

"Are you, or aren't you?"

"I-I am, I guess."

He scratches the side of his head, near his temple. "I know you have no reason to trust me, but I uh, I guess I kind of, in a way, know what you might be going through so… if you ever want to talk, you can talk to me." He shrugs and his small smile suggests some embarrassment.

I cover my face for a second. Is this for real? Edward Cullen is offering to be my shoulder? That's when it becomes clear to me. _Of course!_ His mom died last spring. He thinks we share a commonality in that. Absent mothers. Something nobody else can really understand.

"Maybe I will." I start to walk away, then turn back. "Same to you. If you ever want to talk."

He shakes his head as if he already knows he'll never want to talk about it, but smiles.

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><p>AN: Thank you for reading. Say hello. Tell me what you think so far. :)


	2. Impressions

**A/N**: Thank you everyone for reading! All the reviews, alerts, favorites, and the quiet readers are appreciated!

I can't believe that I didn't mention my awesome beta, myimm0rtal, last chapter. She's also prereading for me, along with everything real life is throwing her way, and it blows me away how loyal she is. I owe so much to her!

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><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

** Impressions**

**Edward:**

It's a waste of time trying to keep indifferent about something. All the talk of the new girl I try to ignore only builds up my curiosity. Before she's transferred into my chemistry class on Friday, I've only seen her from a distance, and have observed little. I know that she has long brown hair and she sits at a different lunch table every day. I've seen Eric reach for her hip, that clown, Mike Newton shove him out of the way to wrap an arm around her, and I've even seen Jasper hug her.

Now, in Chemistry, she's assigned the desk right behind mine, and I watch her as she walks my way.

Carrying a bag almost bigger than she is, she's walking in these boots that stop right below her knees, and they don't have heels on them. They're flat, and pretty worn down. Between her boots and her skirt, her legs are pale, thin. They look cool and smooth, the kind of legs you want to touch, and like they might want to be touched. I don't know if that's true, but they're inviting thighs, I know that much.

With each step, her skirt rises a little and then falls, rises and falls. The skirt's a tease.

About ten metal bracelets circle one wrist and they make too much noise when she moves her arm. Her jacket's open, and although it's just a T-shirt underneath, it's a snug fit. I can see her shape. She's one of those girls who looks innocent and arousing at the same time.

Our eyes meet and I find myself shifting in my seat as I look away.

I hear her say, "Hey," as she passes, but I pretend I don't. My chemistry book is too interesting.

When the bell rings, instead of passing she stops at my desk.

"I know all your friends. I thought we should meet, too." She's smiling at me.

Just like her legs, her face is pale, but her cheeks are pink, and it does strike me that she wears way less makeup than most of the girls in school. If the other girls didn't pile it on, I might not notice something like this, but here in Forks, these things stand out.

What also stands out are the various colored streaks in her mostly dark brown hair: some blond, some blonder, and some sort of red. There aren't a lot of them, mostly thick pieces around the front, and they're the kind of streaks that are not meant to look natural.

Her eyes are brown and clear, like liquid, and there's something in them that defies the streaks in her hair - hardly any variation in color.

"I'm Isabella." She holds her hand out to me.

I kind of laugh. I don't get what she's trying to do here. Is this her way of coming on to me? The girls I'm used to are way less subtle.

"So, you don't shake hands or greet people when they greet you? Nice." She starts to walk away.

I cock my head, watching her go. She's mad at me. This is new. I fight a smile and catch up to her in the hall.

"I'm Edward ," I say from behind her.

She doesn't look back. "I know who you are."

New girl Isabella already hates me, I think.

Then she pulls a camera out of her bag, turns and snaps my picture. I stare again. This girl has me dumbfounded. She seems angry, but then takes my picture? I speed up and fall into pace next to her.

"What was that?" I bend down, saying this to her shoulder.

"It's a camera." Without a glance my way, she holds it up, turning it in her wrist like she needs to point it out to me. Her bracelets jingle. "I can see why it might confuse you. It's an old one. Takes film. Maybe you've heard of it?"

I laugh. "I mean, why did you take my picture?"

"Don't think you're special. I take most people's picture. It's for my memories. I've made a mental note to write 'Rude' under your picture. It rings a little truer to me than Edward."

"Hey, wait." I touch her arm, and she stops, looking up at me with her head tipped to the side as if to tell me to get on with it. "I'm sorry. It's just - you said you knew all my friends."

"Yeah, so?"

"Well my friends' friends aren't necessarily my friends. Know what I mean?"

"You have an unfortunate way of introducing yourself. I was right… Rude." She speeds up, but then slows again, turning over her shoulder slightly, although not enough to face me. "You should try chamomile."

"What for?"

"That bug up your ass." This time a smile meets her lips before she takes off.

I shake my head laughing, unable to figure her out.

.

The sun's going strong after school. Hoods and sweatshirts are off. Most of the girls are in tank tops and some of the guys have their shirts off, tucked into their back pockets. It's not hot by any standards, but with something as rare as sunshine in Forks, you soak it up while you can.

"Vitamin D," Jasper says, clapping my back. He's one with his shirt tucked into his pocket. The ladies are staring, just as he wants them to. He's even walking in this tall, arched way that flexes his chest. I can't look.

My phone chimes a text, and I don't check it. I know it's Alice. She hasn't stopped bothering me about talking to Jasper for her. I keep telling her that I need to wait for the right time to bring it up. That's partially true, but also I don't want to bring it up because I know Jasper's answer will disappoint Alice. And I'll be the one who has to break it to her.

"Party at Rooster's tonight, Cullen."

"Nah, not tonight."

"Come on, man. Girls? Liquor? Girls? Music? Girls? And bring Senna. We'll jam."

"I don't play anymore." I'm referring to Senna, when I say this, my guitar. Jasper named it after some older woman he played for one night last year. He was trying to get her into bed, and asked to borrow it. It worked. And the reason I know it worked is not because he told me, but I saw the woman in his sketchbook. That's the way he keeps track of his conquests. I'd like not to see Alice added to that sketchbook.

Anyway, Jasper's the only one who calls my guitar Senna. It hasn't caught on with anyone else, but he won't let it go. Rooster, however - also known as Emmett - is a nickname that's stuck since he had an orange mohawk for about twenty seconds in the seventh grade. Jasper started that one, too - he's pretty proud of himself. And Emmett's enough of a sports star around campus that even the teachers call him Rooster.

"You don't play; you don't party. We're seniors, stop making so many god damn rules for yourself, Shorty." Shorty, another one of Jasper's names. At about six-four, he's the only one at our high school who's taller than me, even if it is only by two inches. He's got a real thing for nicknaming people.

"You know? You just gotta get yourself good and fucked. If you don't use it…" He shrugs with his arms up. "How long's it been for you?"

"Fuck off."

"It's a joke, asshole, but listen." He stops me. "We're all a little worried about you. You're hanging out with Victoria now?"

"Problem?"

"Nope." He's shaking his head. "Not at all. Hey, she's hot. I'd do her. Except, why abandon us for her?"

"How's that? Because I've talked to her a couple times?"

"It's not the quantity; it's the quant-it-y?"

I don't bother pointing out that he's just said quantity twice.

He explains that I may have only spoken to her on a couple occasions, but it's the amount of time I spend talking to her on those occasions that counts. He says I've said more to her lately than to my real friends.

I give that some thought, my real friends.

Real friends know you. These guys don't know me anymore. They want Cullen, the partier who jams on the guitar; Cullen, the richest guy in Forks who spreads the wealth; Cullen, the guy with a collection of cars. But I'm Cullen, the guy who has four hundred thirty-seven friends, the population of Forks High, and they're only friends or wannabe friends for two reasons: parties and money. I like to think that Jasper and Alice are different. But lately they're proving themselves not to be.

Victoria's not like that, though. I know this already after only speaking to her twice: Wednesday, the anniversary of the day everything went down with her mother, and yesterday, after school, I gave her a lift home.

And why did I go up to her that day Lauren was giving her shit?

I let Alice borrow a five for the vending machine. I didn't have anything smaller. But with the bill, the article fell out. Like an idiot, I opened it up at school. Anyone could've snatched it from me and I'd have been humiliated.

It didn't matter; I couldn't stop myself.

_Surgeon's Wife Found Dead by Son_ - reads the headline. It's all about me finding her even though I'm never named. The article talks about the pills and more than hints at suicide. And as much as I hate the article, the headline is the worst. She was so much more than a surgeon's wife. That was the last thing she was.

I folded the article up before anyone caught sight of it, stuck it back in my wallet, and that's when I saw Lauren giving Victoria shit about her mom.

"You need to get out," Jasper says now. "Blow off some steam. Or maybe get blown." He laughs at his own joke.

"Can't tonight. My dad and Esme are gone. I'm on Max duty."

"All right, man." I can tell he's disappointed.

"Maybe next weekend."

"Sure, see you around." His voice has dropped another octave and I'm sure he's pissed, but he calls out over his shoulder, "If you don't want to party, just come over. Hang out."

I tell him I will.

Victoria's waiting by my car. It's the classic Mustang again - new to me, needs some work, but I have some affinity for the rough running engine. I motion for her to get in.

"I can take you straight home today," I tell her. Max has Soccer practice until five.

She's asked me for the lift because James has been working right after school. Neither of us mention what kind of "work" he does.

"No Porsche today? This one sounds like it's about to blow up."

"You're safe. It's just old and loud." I tell her I'll fix it up. But I might not. I kind of like it the way it is - its original butter yellow color, its tan leather seats with tears. It's already lived a life and now it's in mine.

She asks me if she can take me up on the offer to talk about her mom. I tell her, "Go ahead." And I listen to her story. It's a long one that really tugs at my chest. I mean, I thought I had it bad.

* * *

><p><strong>VICTORIA<strong>

A blur of trees fly past us, houses, other cars. He drives like he's in a drag race. The seat belt sticks like someone spilled syrup on it, and I have to give it several tugs before it loosens up.

The car slows. He must have seen me struggling with the seat belt. He can tell I'm scared. I think it's nice he slows without my asking him to.

On one side of the road, the forest and hills wall the town in, hiding the neighborhoods as if safeguarding them. On the other side is the river, though it's hard to see when driving through town because of all the buildings along the front, blocking any view. Once higher up in the hills, the view of the town is serene looking, back-lit by a river that shines even on cloudy days, but sparkles like none other on sunny days - it's something you might find pictured on a vacation getaway pamphlet. But it's right here in Forks, where people don't tend to vacation.

"I'm not a crack baby."

"Didn't think so."

"Not a crack whore."

"Don't look like one."

"And I don't do crack, either. Never have and never will."

"Okay."

"I mean, I'm not a square. I smoke pot once in a while, with James. And I drink. You know?"

"Sure. Victoria, I get it. I try not to get involved in rumors. All right?"

"You are different, aren't you? I never knew that. I thought you were a lot like the rest of them."

He's staring ahead at the road and I can now see what all the other girls must see. He's obviously gorgeous, but when you think someone's an ass, you don't really notice his looks anymore.

Even though Edward smiles and jokes around a lot, when I look closely there's sadness behind his eyes. I can almost spot a tremble right under his iris, the constant suppression of tears. It tells me he'll understand me. And I've always wanted someone else, aside from James, to know the truth.

I tell him what I remember - about how sometimes in the morning, my mom would leave the bathroom door open a crack and I could peek through. I watched her pour white powder onto a little mirror she kept in a drawer. She'd separate the powder into neat lines with a credit card. She was very meticulous about it, and when she got it just right, she'd bend over the counter, hold a short straw or sometimes a rolled up dollar bill to a nostril and I'd watch it all disappear into her nose, line after line.

Sometimes it would make her really happy and excited. She'd bound out of the bathroom smiling so big her cheeks pushed at her ears. Her whole face was happy; her whole body. I could almost feel her tingles just by looking at her. She'd rush me around getting me ready for school in a flurry even though we weren't running late. Sometimes she'd dance with me and it would make me laugh until my stomach hurt.

Other times she was different. She'd stay in the bathroom for a long time, sitting and then almost lying against the wall like she was asleep, but she wasn't.

This was when she scared me.

When she saw me, she'd smile and her eyes were barely open. And when she finally did come out, she wouldn't rush around; she'd move slow, like her feet kept sinking into clouds, and her smile was dreamy, like an angel. Nothing could harm her. It was like she was already dead and in Heaven.

On the day I took her vial, she'd caught me looking though the crack in the door.

"Baby," she said, flustered and avoiding my eyes. "Don't look so worried. It's just Mommy's medicine." She wore only her bra and panties, hipbones poking at her flesh like they hurt. I touched them to see if they were sharp. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "If you need to use the bathroom, just knock next time, okay, sugar?" She scrambled past me into her bedroom, leaving the vial sitting on the counter. It looked like smears of sugar inside. I took it and hid it in my pocket.

"That's how my teacher found it," I tell Edward.

"She was taking cocaine, but what else? What was the other thing?"

"Heroin. I was too young to understand all the adults at the time, but I remember words that were repeated over the years. I'll never touch the stuff, either one of them. I won't be like my mom. I'm not like her."

"You're not," Edward says, shaking his head. He brings his hand over, squeezing my shoulder in a nervous way and then lets go. He asks me where my mom is now and I have to tell him I don't know.

"In the beginning she was in treatment and I could visit her, but after she left, none of us - as far as I know - none of us have any idea where she is. She calls my aunt once in a while, never wants to talk to me, though."

"What about your dad?"

I laugh through my nose and look down.

"Sorry," Edward says, adjusting in his seat. "Sorry."

"No, it's just - I don't even know who he is. Don't even know if he knows I exist." I don't cry when I say this, and I don't have to hold back tears, either. I've talked about it and thought about it enough that it doesn't affect me like that anymore. It's embarrassing though, the family I come from, and telling someone like Edward about it.

"Tell me something about your mom," I say.

"Like what?"

"Anything. What advice did she give you? What's the best advice?"

The engine is shut off. He's looking out the windshield, and I'm thinking he's going to decide not to say anything about his mom. Then something seems to pique him. His heavy eyebrows raise.

"She always used to tell me to be nice to the girls." His laugh is soft. "She said that one a lot, and I never really understood what that meant to her until after she passed away."

"That's why you're different."

"I could've been better. I didn't listen to her enough while she was alive. And people don't know." He tilts his head toward me, making eye contact, as his hands grip the steering wheel. And I see that tremble again, right behind his dark brown eyes. "They don't know everything you wish you'd done for a certain person until she dies. You can look back at your past and wish you'd done certain things differently for yourself, but when someone close to you dies? There are all these simple things you never even thought about when she was alive. I wish I had."

"I bet she thought you did enough for her."

"You're the first person I've talked to about her, aside from Max, but even then, he does most of the talking and I just add my two cents when I think it'll help him."

"You can tell me some more."

He sits up straight, dropping his hand from the steering wheel and adjusting his legs. I think it's more the conversation than the tight fit in the car that's making him uncomfortable. "Some other time."

I gather my backpack, thanking Edward for the ride, and the talk. I hold the door open and duck my head into the car before I leave.

"Just in case, if you tell anyone, make sure you don't change the facts." I really don't think rumors about me can get worse, but I feel I should ask this of him anyway.

"I'm not telling anyone anything."

.

We live in a two-story house that's as brown on the inside as it is on the outside. Its décor hasn't been updated since the seventies, so the walls are covered in wood paneling. When I was little, I used to think of it as a chocolate house, but now it's just ugly.

My aunt has been talking about fixing it up for as long as I can remember, but nothing has ever been started, and not because they can't afford it.

My feet pad over the rust-colored shag carpeting. The color of the living room carpet actually matches the color of the refrigerator and the phone - which is a hanging wall phone, with a cord.

My aunt's head is inside the refrigerator when I enter the kitchen through the swinging doors. Her butt sticks out behind her like a pair of soccer balls.

When she comes out with vegetables in her arms, I kiss her cheek. She's shorter than me now.

Aunt Cheri declines my offer to help with dinner and I take my books out to start my homework at the table. I'll study here until my uncle comes home - whom I prefer to refer to as Mud. I spend as little time with Mud as possible while living under the same roof. I don't like the way he looks at me.

Aunt Cheri asks me how school was and I tell her it's fine. Sometimes I tell her the truth, but today I don't feel like getting into it. I talked enough with Edward.

"I'm eating with James tonight," I say. "Can I take your car?"

She raises an eyebrow at me. "Don't you think it's time you make more friends?"

"I did." I shrug, biting into an apple from the fruit bowl centering the table. "Edward Cullen."

She stops her carrot chopping. "That poor boy." Her eyes close as she shakes her head. "Their mother was the only thing those boys had going for them in that house."

I ask her what she knows, and the steady chopping sounds of her knife over carrots continues.

I crunch into my apple. It's a juicy one, my lips already sticky.

"His father's real neglectful. Everyone talks about it at the hospital, but never to his face. That's something you just don't do." She points the knife at me as she says this and I think maybe that's how she feels - like someone's threatening her with a knife - as she imagines saying something like that to Dr. Cullen.

My aunt is a nurse and works with Dr. Cullen once in a while. She's told me before that he's the top surgeon on the West Coast. He's flown out several times a month to operate in hospitals around the country, but she says that Forks is lucky enough to have him right here, his home town. Forks is lucky, though I gather his sons are not.

"He's sad. Different than he used to be," I say of Edward. Different, I think, but better? It's a question I won't rush into answering. I lean back in my chair with my French text, conjugating verbs, and cross my feet on the corner of the table. It's Formica, made to look like faux marble, and it's heavy on the faux. I can see the reflection of my red hair in the table's chrome edge. My aunt tells me to take my feet down. I don't think my feet, shoes on or not, could ruin the table any more than it already is. I take them down anyway.

"Comme tu veux, Tatie." _Whatever you say, Auntie_.

From the first week I moved in with my aunt and Mud, I stopped simply creating poems in my head and started writing them down in a book. Before I learned how to write all the words, I drew pictures. There was the picture of the penguin family who ate each other.

Everything was black and white even though I loved my crayons. The penguins couldn't see or acknowledge anything beyond black and white, and so would starve if they didn't feed off each other. They had to eat each other in order to survive, but none of them survived anyway.

By the age of seven I could write words, so my poems were pictures with some phrases that told the tale. I drew a stick figure woman with a round tummy. There was a smiling face in her tummy, a baby. The words read that the mommy had a baby, and then ate her baby because it turned out, the baby was happier inside her tummy.

I eventually stopped writing about people and animals who ate each other. But those were my first few poems. I'm still not quite sure what they mean.

Even now, at seventeen, the poems I write are amateurish and not always pretty, but it's what I do.

Now I write about water that flows backwards, winds that will carry you away even if you don't want to go, and rain that will pound you into the earth.

I remember the first poem I wrote about James. It was the night we decided to become friends.

It was a sporadically rainy, wind-blown and leafy Halloween. We were in seventh grade, and I had just entered the beginning of my years of ridicule, the beginning of seeing Lauren for the person she really is. I must not have quite believed it yet, when she invited me to her party, telling me to wear a pretty costume.

"You're so pretty," she said over the phone. "Make sure you play that up."

My aunt went shopping with me and helped me pick out a fairy costume. I had blue wings that sparkled and I added matching sparkles to my face. I wore a layered iridescent pixie skirt and silver shoes. My hair curled over my shoulders, and I did feel pretty.

But at the party, I was the only one there in a costume. People stared, they pointed, they laughed into their hands. I wanted to run out; maybe I should have. I searched for Lauren. I would ask her why she didn't tell me the costume part of the party had been cancelled. When I found her in the kitchen, I got my answer.

"Why, Victoria! I was sure you'd come dressed as a clown. You wouldn't even need a wig." Her smile and voice were honey and moonbeams, while her words were lightning strikes, and her laughter was the cackle of a witch.

More laughter brewed around me as I headed toward the door. Words that cut left the mouths of many; I covered my ears.

Out front, I sat on the porch, the tulle of my dress scratching at my legs through my tights. My head fell into my hands. I had no idea where to go or what to do - too mortified to call my aunt already, who'd just dropped me off.

"I like your costume," said a boy from behind me. His voice sounded newly deepened, like he was just trying it on for size, but it didn't quite fit.

"Really funny." I wiped at my tears. "Ha, ha. Have a good laugh."

"Who cares if you're the only one in a costume? It's Halloween."

"James," I said, looking up at him. I knew him, of course, though we'd never had one class together. "This is a stupid party."

"Lame." He nodded. "Why are we here?"

"I'm waiting for my aunt to come back. I can't call her and tell her I was the joke of the party."

He sat beside me, our legs touching. He was so skinny back then, scrawny. "Know who I think is the joke of the party? Lauren."

Trick-r-treating kids were running toward us, up the path to Lauren's house. I got up and started walking home. Nine blocks wasn't too far, I tried to tell myself, though I was already shivering. I could feel James beside me.

Rain started in again, small slow drops for now. Leaves ahead of us stopped crunching under our feet and started squishing instead.

Crossing Sycamore Street, I said, "I don't think I have any friends anymore." I picked up a wet leaf and twirled it back and forth in my fingers. It sagged and I let it go, wet and dropping heavily to the ground. I made up a poem in my head about heavy leaves. Heavy as rocks. You could throw them at someone and they would cause injuries. The wind called me a liar when it blew hard enough to rattle the wet leaves, so unlike rocks. I liked my poem anyway and would write it down when I got home.

On Maple Drive, as we passed more screaming kids in costumes, James said he would be my friend.

"But you're a boy."

He stopped and I turned back. "Does that make me diseased?"

"No." I smiled.

The rain had stopped. With the next rush of wind at my face and leaves at my feet, I thought that maybe James was making fun of me. Maybe this was all part of the joke.

"Prove we're friends, Boy."

"How?"

I pulled my wings off, my shoulders happy to be free of the cutting elastic straps. "Wear these."

He put them on, laughing, and wore them all the way to my house. He even pulled me by my wrist to trick-r-treat at a few homes. Then, with three pieces of candy fisted in my palm, I knew I could trust him. He wore the wings just to cheer me up, and didn't care when the people answering doors laughed at him. The wings bobbed on his back and I made up another poem about boy fairies, glittery-winged creatures with rockstar hair. They lived inside tree branches, and these boy fairies were the reason why rock-solid leaves crunched under feet. If it wasn't for these fairies, leaves would hurt us all when they fell from trees like boulders. They would damage cars.

James and I wouldn't see each other much at school. We had different lunch hours - I sat alone, feeling eyes aimed at the new town crack baby. I wrote poems at my table, in my poetry book that locked. Never would I share my poetry with anyone.

At the lunch table, hunched over my book, I wrote a poem about a boy and girl of the night. They were only alive then. In the day they were dead, black-lipped corpses, but in the dark, all the colors of the world were in them.

James and I were nighttime friends long before we became daytime or all-the-time friends. For now, at thirteen, the night, cold and damp and soggy-leafed, was our time.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading! :)<p> 


	3. Steppingstones

**A/N:** Thank you for reading, alerting, favoriting, and the reviews are always appreciated. Also, thanks for the recs!

The lovely ginginlee stepped in as beta and pre-reader for this chapter. She writes the compelling story, _The Earth, It Trembles_. Give it a try if you're looking for something unique to read. :)

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Steppingstones**

**Edward**

I have an hour and a half before I pick up Max, so I go by Mrs. Makenna's, lug the lawnmower from her shed and start it up. It takes a few jerks to get it to do anything more than putter out.

On my way to Jasper's last May, I saw the old widow struggling with the lawn mower at the bottom of her hill, pushing it at a near ninety degree slant. She was leaning all her weight into this thing that was practically bigger than she was, and I was sure she was about to hurt herself. I mean, it looked like it would fall on her any second and crush her bones, so I pulled over to offer my help.

She smiled wide at me, flashing a gold tooth in the corner, and said that if I'd come to mow it regularly, she'd pay me two dollars a mow. I never take the money, even though she insists. I have to tell her she's already paid up to get her to stop shoving it at me.

"I am?" she says, clipping closed her money purse. I don't like tricking her, but I won't take her money.

She's not home today when I do it. It takes me maybe twelve minutes to do her lawn, and I imagine it would take Mrs. Makenna twelve hours - and her life - to do it herself. After I'm finished, I close the mower up in the shed and head down to the creek behind her house to rinse my hands. A glance to my left has me doing a double-take. There, sitting on a boulder under the bridge, with her nose in a book, is Isabella. Even from here I can tell it's no textbook she's reading. It's a novel. Curious about what it is, I head over there, wiping my wet hands off on my jeans. She doesn't notice me approaching over the rocks, she's so absorbed.

She jumps when I ask what she's reading and shoots me the most worried look, as if she's been caught breaking the law. I wonder for a second if she has a joint hidden in those pages.

The look on her face turns into a reluctant sort of acceptance. Maybe it's just me she's disappointed in seeing. She flashes the cover of her book at me.

"That isn't for school."

"No, they're reading _Moby Dick_. Read it last year."

"So, how are you finding Raskolnikov?" I ask in a mock voice of sophistication.

Her eyes widen and it's not my imagination when their color lightens. "You've read it?"

"Don't hide your shock or anything."

One hand covers her eyes, while the other one appears to involuntarily hold her place in the book. I notice she's not wearing her bracelets, and also that she's dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt that looks big enough for a man. "Of course you've read it. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She spreads two fingers that are covering her eyes and peeks through. It's cute and I try not to smile. "I mean, what student at Forks High hasn't?"

"I guess I get your shock. It's probably the same reason I came over here when I saw you reading."

"Because I'm reading?"

"By choice, it looks like. Why here?"

"I live right up there." She points up the hill to the brick house, next door to Mrs. Makenna's. "I like it under this bridge. I can stay out here even if it rains."

In the sky only three white clouds are in sight; we'll be rain-free for a while.

"Wait. What I'm doing here makes total sense. Why are you here? Don't you live in some forest-hidden mansion?"

"What else have you heard about me?" I squat down beside her so she doesn't have to squint to look at me.

"Sounds like your dad might be Dr. Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll. Somebody told me your roof gets struck by lightning once a year."

I laugh at that.

"But I've also been told that I have to go to one of your parties. Nobody throws parties like you do."

I shrug. She'll be waiting a long time if she's expecting me to throw a party.

"So, why are you here?"

"I mow your neighbor's lawn."

Now she's the one who laughs. "You _what_? You, the richest guy in Forks, mows lawns?"

"That's cool," I say, not laughing. I don't bother telling her why I do it. I look out at the creek. It's a narrow one, and pretty still. It barely makes a sound at all; it's maybe the sound of a dog taking a piss or something.

"Don't pretend to be insulted. I may not _know you_, know you, but I already know you better than that."

"You _think_ you know me. Enjoy your book, Isabella. Tell Rodya hello for me." I head back up toward the street.

"Hey," she says, "If I really did hurt your feelings, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

I nod, leave her wondering.

I am pissed, not so much by what she said, but by allowing myself to think for a minute that she might be different. But no, she makes assumptions about who I am based on my family's money just like everyone else.

At the top of the hill, I glance back at her, under the bridge, rifling through her bag. She did apologize, though, and that's something that would never cross the minds of most of the others in this town.

I still can't get a read on her. I shake my head, no reason to care so much.

I start to my car when I hear her call my name. I look back and she shouts for me to come on over for a drink the next time I mow the old widow's lawn. "We'll talk some more about Dostoevsky… or whatever!"

"Hot and cold," I say.

"What?" she shouts.

"You're hot and cold," I say, louder.

She throws her arms out at her side, camera in hand, and shrugs. Then her camera's in front of her face, she's bending slightly forward, and I know she's taking my picture.

She's nuts.

"I'm thirsty, now," I shout at her.

"Come on, then." She slips her camera into her bag and gives a big motion to me with her arm. I start back down the hill, checking my watch. There's still time before I have to get Max.

"What will the caption say under that picture?" I ask, following her through weeds toward her house.

"I don't know yet." She brings a finger to her mouth in thought. I think she might be as confused about me as I am about her.

"Why do you mow her lawn?" We're walking through the garden, up brick patio steps and through the back slider into the kitchen. I wipe dirt off my feet before entering.

"If I don't, she will."

It's a small enough kitchen that it would've driven my mother crazy, but in real perspective it's probably average size, bigger than the one in the pool house, anyway.

"It's nice that you do that for her. I think I might've been wrong about you." She drapes her bag over the back of a chair. The bag sags heavily, seams tearing on the straps. How many cameras does she have in there?

"Maybe." I don't tell her that she's not the only one who's suspected being wrong about me lately.

She pulls a lemon off the top of a basket of fruit and starts slicing it. When she fills my glass of water she slips a slice on top. "It's to rejuvenate you. Try it."

Isabella offers me a seat in the living room. I don't take it. I'm looking around. The room is so normal, and kind of cluttered, that I want to check out everything. I look at the shelving cabinet covered in framed pictures and little glass or ceramic figures. I pick up a snow dome. Mickey Mouse is inside standing with raised arms in front of a castle with a banner that reads: _Disney World, Orlando_.

"Those things creep me out," Isabella says.

"Why?" I turn it upside down to let the snow fall.

"Poor Mickey. He's stuck in there. That small, snowing world. And he'll never get out. It's creepy."

I place it back on the shelf, snow falling over Mickey. I'm inclined to remind her that the mouse isn't real.

"I like it," I say. "We don't have anything like that. My dad says everything in our house has to have purpose."

"That has purpose."

"What's its purpose?"

She comes over, picks it up and shakes the thing that creeps her out. Apparently she's protective of it regardless of the creepiness.

"It's a decoration. A souvenir, and a memory of where we used to live. What can be more purposeful than that?"

Something about her saying memories strikes me. I want to know about those memories. I would have asked, but she's already moved on, talking about photography, pictures she used to take in Florida. I notice large black and whites in frames on the walls. "Yours?"

All nature pictures - landscapes or close-ups of leaves. Looks like she experiments with lighting, different times of day or something. There's one in which you can see a straight path of light from the sun falling over wild grass.

She points to the largest one in the room, hanging behind the sofa. "Grand Canyon. On our way here from Florida, we stopped at different landmarks along the way. These tell the story of our move."

Every time I looked at her, I notice something different: The lightening of her brown eyes whenever she talks about photography, or maybe anything she cares about; the pink on her cheeks that's always there deepens every so often, just subtly enough that it's hard to catch if you're not watching; her lips, also pink, the bottom one more ridged, dry looking. I want to touch it, let my finger rub right along it for as long as she'll allow. I have to physically restrain my hands from reaching out to touch that bottom lip. My hands find my pockets. Isabella notices where I'm looking and her own hand comes up, her fingers touching right where mine want to be. I crack a knuckle in my pocket.

"I know," she says, and her cheeks go ahead and deepen. I'm compelled now to run the backs of my fingers along her cheeks. I know how soft her skin is, no question. This girl is driving me nuts with the simplest things.

"Chapped. All this wind. Don't look, they're so ugly." Her lips disappear into her mouth and when they reappear they aren't at all dry looking. They are now wet, and this does nothing to dispel my want to touch them.

I'm convinced she's trying to turn me on. Except, she appears so unaware of it that either she's really good at it or I'm already falling for her.  
>I take a deep breath, lifting my eyes. Hers are lightening. On the verge of mentioning her eyes or lips, I scan the shelves again. I pick up a family picture.<p>

"What's going on in this?"

"Nothing. We're just us, posing. My mom, dad and me. Don't you like candids better? This is just so posed." She takes the frame from me, tracing along its base with her thumb as she looks at the picture. "This was back in Florida. Look at the background." She tilts the frame my way. "It's crazy how you can see the heat. It looks like it's a million degrees out. Unbearable. Like, you open your door and you're already covered in sweat. You want to take twenty showers a day. And do you think that's an exaggeration? I bet you do, but it's not. I swear. You take a shower, take one step outside, and you need another shower. Some days you'd want to spend all day in the shower. Or the swimming pool."

I smile at the way she talks as if I'm arguing with her and she has to prove her point. I pick up the snow dome again and shake it until it's all blizzard-white, the contents inside, Mickey and the castle, hidden.

"Tell that to Mickey," I say. "He's stuck in a never-ending blizzard."

Isabella laughs. "Smart ass," she says, hitting my arm.

"How do you like Forks?" I replace the snow dome and pick up my glass of water, then take the seat on the sofa she offered earlier.

She sits across from me on the table and rests her socked feet on the sofa edge. There's a small hole at the tip of her big toe that she plays with, making it bigger. "Most of the time, I miss the sun."

"But you've made friends already. It's hard not to see that."

Her lip pulls back a little, almost in disappointment. "There's a difference between getting to know people and making friends."

And then it's like I know her. One minute I can't figure her out and the next minute, I just know her.

"Have you read any other Dostoevsky?" She asks.

"Just _Crime and Punishment_."

"I've got one for you to read." She takes off up the stairs and I'm unsure whether to follow her or not.

I stir the floating lemon slice around with my finger, and push at it. The water tastes too much like overly diluted lemon juice. Maybe if the lemon lets out a little more flavor the taste will get stronger. Maybe I should ask for a second slice.

I hear Isabella on her way back downstairs and I lick my finger.

She shoves a book at me.

_The Idiot._

I lift my eyes to her. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"Yes. This is how I communicate. Through book titles."

Her humor can be so dry sometimes it's hard to tell if she's joking.

"No, Cullen! It's a good book. Next time you come over, you bring me a book."

"Cullen?"

"Isn't that what everyone calls you?"

_Sure, Swan._

"If you want," I say, "you could come to my house to pick out a book."

"That's not the point. You have to pick it out."

Is that her way of turning me down? Do I ask her again?

"Anything I want?"

"Yep. And I have to read it."

"What if you've already read it and hated it?"

She shrugs. "I'll read it again, maybe change my mind. The point is: I pick your book, you pick mine."

She wants to be book buddies?

"How about if I ask you to come over again, and this time you answer?"

I notice a quick twitch of her eyebrows, as though they're about to pull together, but never do. Damned if I know what that means.

"Okay, when?"

"Tomorrow. I'll pick you up."

She smiles. She has one of those slow-growing smiles that begins as a grin, and then just keeps growing until she's beautiful.

I try to look away; I'm unsuccessful.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Blues, greens, bubbles, three large paper lanterns dangling from the ceiling, my room is the only room in the house that's been updated recently. For my seventeenth birthday, my aunt and Mud let me redecorate. I kept the same twin bed, which I pushed up against the wall, covered with the bubble comforter, and lined with way too many, or just the right amount of pillows. I turned it into a daybed and a sanctuary. I have the same matching off-white dresser, desk, and nightstand set from my childhood. But everything else is new.

I chose bubbles, rounded edges, circles, because my room is where I dream, where I write most of my poetry, and where I can imagine any kind of life I want. A life where I can sit on a bubble and it will take me to any destination I navigate it to.

As many changes as my imaginary life happens upon, the constants are always there: James and Aunt Cheri.

I'm readying myself now for dinner at James'. I throw my completed homework in my backpack, grab my jacket and head down to the chocolate-ugly downstairs to thank Aunt Cheri for letting me take her car.

My aunt's squishy cheek molds to my lips when I kiss her. Her cool fingers hold my face, and she looks at me for a little while with a sigh - it's something she does a lot. It's her way of saying goodbye, I guess.

Aunt Cheri is the mother I wish was mine. I know, and I've come to terms with this, that I'm better off with her than if I'd never been taken from my mother. Aunt Cheri has always treated me like her daughter, and I believe she wishes I was.

I went through a time when I rebelled against that sweet woman. I was incredibly angry with her by the time I was thirteen because I was starting to get picked on. Lauren had shamed me at school in front of a million kids.

Okay, more like eighteen kids, but still, I was _thirteen_. It may as well have been the whole world.

I was being taunted because I didn't have parents and my real mom was a "crack whore," and since I was a "crack baby," I had no hope but to grow up to be just like my mom.

At first, I fought back. Right there on the quad, I screamed at them that they were wrong about me. I called Lauren a big fat liar, and I called the rest of them followers. I let insults drop from my mouth like saliva, and all it did was make everything worse. I didn't even feel better afterward. I felt like a drooling moron, and I saw that there was no escaping this. Lauren had shoved me into a cave, and I had tried digging my way out the wrong side.

Earth. I met earth and wall and stone and kids whose taunting grew into hate for me. And when it's gone that far, that's it. There's no where else to go. Even the nice kids who never picked on me or laughed along at the jokes wouldn't befriend me. They feared the same treatment.

James was the only one. He was brave. He didn't care. He could even laugh about it, and sometimes got me laughing about it, too.

I blamed it all on my aunt and acted out at every opportunity.

One night, a night spent strolling the neighborhood streets with James, when I walked through the door past my "home before nine" curfew, they'd had enough. My uncle - he wasn't Mud, yet - said that I didn't care that they worried sick about me, and maybe what I needed was a good spanking. Even if he never touched me before, it scared me enough to finally blurt out, "Everything is your fault, Auntie! Why didn't you help my mom before it was too late? You came there to take me away, but why didn't you come before that?"

Aunt Cheri cried. She took me into her arms, sitting with me on the corner of my bed, rubbing my hair back. My head rested on her pillow of a bosom. "Darling girl," she said, "I wish I'd known enough to help out sooner. I would've done anything, you know. To help her and you. You are the best thing she ever did in her life."

"You're lying," I told my aunt as she rocked me in her arms. "I don't believe anything you say."

"Darling girl," she said, kissing my head. "My darling girl."

She changed me into my pajamas because I refused to do it myself, and then changed herself, before slipping into my small bed where she would sleep all night. In the blackest moment of that night, after the last of the evening light faded, and before the morning light was even the flicker of a thought in our part of the universe, both of us were still awake.

She said, "Maybe your mom will turn her life around someday. She talks about wanting to get well for you. Sometimes she checks herself into rehab. She can't seem to stay away from it all, though. She's sick. She's just so sick."

"I don't want her back. Not ever."

"You're the priority now, Victoria, and you have been since that day eight years ago. Please understand how loved you are. Uncle Phil and I, we love you like our own. Our own."

My aunt Cheri couldn't have children of her own, so maybe I was like hers - the daughter she never got to have.

"You're our gift," she said, as if confirming my thoughts.

They thought of me as a gift, as their daughter, but I wasn't. Not really. I had nobody to call Mommy.

.

James' house is smaller than ours, just about half the size, and no second floor. I think it's nice, quaint.

None of the furniture matches, but everything is inviting. A handmade quilt comforts the sofa, cream fabric drapes the mismatched dining room chairs, tied with bows in the back. And with every dinner, his mom serves homemade bread, wrapped up all cozy in a basket to keep it warm. And that, that bread basket, is exactly the feel their whole house gives off.

Most of the time, that's the way it feels.

Tonight's different.

I walk into their house; I never knock.

"He's in his room," his mom tells me without a greeting, and her voice is cold. If I looked, I could probably see ice crystals lingering in her breath. Her blonde ponytail cascades over a shoulder as she sets the last plate on the table.

She's cooked steak, mashed potatoes, and canned green beans. Table beautiful and ready, she calls to James. She seems angry, so I call him, too.  
>I rest my jacket on the back of my chair and take a seat.<p>

His mom is dishing me out some potatoes. She's nervous or preoccupied, and she's piling it on.

"That's fine," I say, catching the spoon on its next trip over my plate. "I'm not an army."

She doesn't laugh. James does, though. He greets me as he takes a seat across from me, plunking heavily into his chair, so much the opposite of how his mother moves. She moves like a breeze in a ballet, even in her anger, or whatever this mood is that's taken over her.

She sits, Donna-Mills-proper, folds her hands in front of her plate and looks down. I think she might pray, which would be something new.

"I visited your father today." Her blue-eyed gaze seems padlocked to her steak.

"Why?" James asks, his full fork not making it to his mouth. It lands on his plate with a metallic clink.

For the first time since his dad was arrested, I feel like I shouldn't be here at all. I can't be still in my seat. James looks over at me and nods.

"Oh, James, it's been almost a year. And, I-I I was… curious."

"Yeah? I'm curious about something, too. How does he look in orange?" James' exit from the table is abrupt. The table rumbles; the hanging edge of the tablecloth quakes. His mother hasn't taken her eyes off her plate. I put my hand on top of her folded ones and then stand to go after James.

"Take him his dinner, Victoria, would you? He's getting too thin." Her voice is soft but monotone.

I'd like to tell her to mother him herself, because I know he needs it right now after what she's just told him. I know he's hurt. But I comply.

Like the rest of the house, his room is a mish-mash of furniture picked up at yard sales or flea markets. His bed is pushed up against one wall, and he's sitting sideways on it, his back against the wall. I join him on the bed, rest my plate on my lap and hand him his. "Your mom wanted you to have this." I want him to know it was her idea, not mine. For some reason I think that's important.

He sets it down, goes to lock the door and then frees the window. A nighttime chill wraps itself around the room like a quick, slithering snake; everything must feel it at once.

I know what the locked door and open window means.

He pulls supplies out of a trick drawer in his desk, and rolls a joint. The woodsy smell, despite the breeze from the window, already overtakes the room and he hasn't even lit up yet.

With the front of his hair falling into his face, he licks the paper, lights up and takes several hits before passing it to me.

I let it burn between my fingers for a little while, just watching James. He blows the smoke out, shakes his hair back and sits on the bed.

"Why would she do that? He'll think he's welcome back here when he gets out."

"You have to ask her."

"I did. She says she's curious? About what? How he might fuck with our lives again? Does he know she had to take a second mortgage out, and I'm paying it?"

"You have to ask her." I take my first hit. It's strong. I can't take much in or hold it long, and I cough it out. My throat burns. "I should've brought our drinks, too," I manage to say between coughs.

"She better not even think I'm going to see him. You know what I think? She's living in this delusion where we end up one little happy family again." He scoffs. "Yeah."

He takes another hit and blows his smoke out the window, tainting the air.

"Hey," he says. "Let's get out of here. Go for a walk."

Just like his smoke, we'll go out the window so we don't have to pass by his mom. We've done this before but for different reasons.

"My coat's in the dining room."

He pulls an extra one from his closet and wraps it over me. The sleeves cover my hands and the hem falls to my thighs.

Outside his window we squash plants under our feet as we make our way to the front of the house. I shiver under his coat, but after a few more hits, I don't feel the cold any longer. We're passing small house after small house - all the same shape and size with glows coming from windows, perfectly manicured pocket lawns, and big old trees. We share the joint right out in the open, not even worried we'll get caught. The street is quiet. No cars pass. Wind blows litter mixed with crunchy leaves along the gutter - trash and nature mingling.

As we get to the end of the block, the joint is finished, and James' eyes are slits. A daze of a smile comes to his face.

"When school's over, where do we go?" He hops down off the curb and back up again.

I smile back at him. This is a game we've played since eighth grade.

"Italy," I say with a hop of my own.

"Where will we live?"

"A villa in Tuscany, where else?" I spin in a circle.

"What will we do?"

"Sell apricots from our apricot grove."

His laugh sounds like he's trying to keep it quiet. It comes from his throat. "Ambitious."

"They're obviously sought after apricots. People will come from all over Europe to our little stand on the side of the road. Some people will take the pits and try to grow their own. But they don't know the secret ingredient."

"Which is?"

"We just smoked it."

He cracks up and puts an arm around me. "I like your world."

I lean into him, and it's moments like this, when we're so close, and how I fit into his side just so, like I belong here, that I imagine we might be meant to be together. Maybe we were fated to become friends so we could become so much more. Only I don't say anything like that to him. I just let the tickles flow through my body, and ignore the thoughts of love and James and a relationship. I wrap my arms around his waist like I can tie him to me.

"They'll never know why they're so famished after eating our apricots."

"We'll be fat," he says. "Your ankles will be like an elephant's."

He's laughing hard again and I push him, nearly send him stumbling into the street. "Hey! Don't ruin it."

"Who says that's ruining it? Besides, you're the one who drowns all the food in olive oil."

"Maybe you should learn a lesson and do the cooking once in a while, chunky." I poke at his stomach through his jacket.

It's only a fantasy, and we know it. Ever since James' dad was locked up a year ago, it's been up to James to help keep his mother and him in their house. And how does a sixteen year old earn the cash to help pay the mortgage?

Selling.

As far as where we would go after graduation, there's the possibility James might never get out of Forks.

I'll stay with him if he wants me to. I have no where else to go.

But the future, we don't talk about that. The only talk of of the future is our fantasy world.

In my bed, still a little high, I roll to my stomach, push my arms under my pillow and think of James.

He tried to kiss me once. It was after another dinner at his house. We were fifteen and his dad was still around, funny and vibrant with life and odd. He cracked joke after joke, making us all laugh, making his wife touch his arm and say: "This is why I fell in love with you." Only she couldn't get the words out smoothly, they were laughing words.

James walked me all the way home like he used to before we could drive. He walked me to the front porch where the light was burnt out. The night was overcast and the lampposts on the street were dim, glowing the color of the inside of an apricot.

"You look orange," I told him.

With a hand on my shoulder he leaned toward my mouth. I'd never kissed anyone before and I knew he knew this, which made me too nervous. My stomach flipped over like gymnasts lived inside. I might have giggled.

I turned my head a little at the last second and his lips landed on the edge of my mouth. They pressed, but mine did nothing.

He nodded, backing up. "Okay," he said, still nodding. "Good night."

He hasn't kissed me since.

I think now, lying in bed, my face in the pillow, maybe we missed our shot. I got scared that night like a tiny little mouse in the street scattering away, and I might never find my way back there.

I sit up, switch on the lamp, take my poetry book out, and nestled against all my pillows, I write a poem about cowards who are as big as elephants but as terrified as mice. They're huge and worthless, the color of shadows, and nobody can even see them no matter how big they are because they don't want to be seen.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading!<p> 


	4. Tailwind

Thank you, Ginginlee, for stepping in as beta and pre-reader again.

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

** Tailwind**

**Edward**

After Max's soccer game - a game which they lost - Max wants to go for pizza with his friend Josh. On the field, I slip him several twenties and tell him to text me when he's ready.

I'll go by Jasper's, try to keep my word to Alice, and then pick up Isabella on my way to get Max.

"Shocker," I say, shaking my head at Jasper when I find him in his room rearranging flowers in a vase on his dresser. There's another bunch of flowers on his nightstand. He's expecting a girl tonight.

Jasper's room is on the first floor of their house; it used to be the master bedroom until his parents added upwards and took over the entire second floor for themselves. In the middle of their living room, there's an iron spiral staircase leading up to what they call "The Honeymoon Suite."

His bedroom has a sliding door to the back so he comes and goes when he wants. Right now the room reeks of cologne, masking any scent he's trying for with the flowers, and then when he lights up a cigarette, I wonder what the point of any of it is. Smoke takes over the room.

I wouldn't usually bother asking who he's expecting, but it might be a lead in for Alice's case.

"Anyone I know?"

"Why, yes," he says with sarcasm before taking another drag.

"Alice?"

He laughs, the cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth, and he doesn't remove it when he talks, so it impedes his speech. "What would make you even ask that, Cullen? Alice is a _boyfriend_ girl. Boyfriend girls need girlfriend guys."

I see his sketchbook lying on his bed and decide to look through it, just to see if Alice is in it. I flip through pencil sketches of naked girls, partially dressed girls, or just faces. But all girls. And if they're in here I know it means Jasper screwed them. So far, I've seen all these sketches before.

"Not that I haven't tried."

Okay, there's something I can take back to Alice. I pause my flipping of pages. "Tried what?"

"Getting her into bed. She won't do it."

"When did you try?"

He tells me it was over the summer. She kept stopping him from feeling her up, so finally he stopped everything and told her he'd wait for her.

That must've been the thing that made Alice thinks he likes her. Jasper doesn't wait for anyone. But what I know and Jasper knows, and Alice doesn't know, is that Jasper was lying when he said it.

I flip through the book again. No sign of Alice, but when I get to the last page I see someone, who is at this moment worse than finding Alice. It's a profile of Isabella, just from the shoulders up. Her shoulders are bare. And it's dated with yesterday's date. My whole purpose for being here turns a one-eighty in half a second.

"Isabella?" I swallow.

"She's the one." He taps his overdue ash into an ashtray, puts the cigarette back in his mouth to hold it and removes a flower from the vase by his bed, laying it over a pillow. He'd only picked up smoking last year, but the way he smokes now, it's like he's been at it for decades.

I toss the sketchbook across his bed at him.

"Oh, that, yeah. I thought you were still guessing at who the lucky chick is tonight."

Isabella has plans with me this afternoon and then Jasper later tonight? Is this what happens when you're in book buddy status?

"You're seducing the new girl with flowers."

Pointing his cigarette at me, he "tsks." "Isabella isn't the type of girl one seduces, my friend."

"I didn't think you knew her that well."

"A lot can happen on a Friday night. I've been trying to get you out there again, haven't I?"

"What kind of girl is she, then?" I fold my arms across my chest.

"Isabella? She's the girl with eyes that say it all. She wants it so bad there's no seduction necessary. She wants to be _done_." He makes thrusting moves with his hips and thinks it's funny. "Big time."

My hands drop to my side, my fist urging to knock Jasper out, but my head is too driven by the fact that he's got a very different impression of this girl than I do.

"How do you know? I mean, I think you're wrong. The vibes I get from her are… different."

"Fuck, man. Do you ever see how, in those tight T-shirts she wears, when she raises her arms to reach her locker, the bottom of the shirt comes up? You don't think chicks try on clothes before they buy them? This girl knows what she's doing and that skin there is dying to be touched. _Dying_ for it. Gotta love short girls with high lockers."

"She doesn't know you, man. She's walking into this without knowing."

"Cullen, I'm not doing anything she doesn't want me to."

What in the hell is up with Isabella?

"Nothing's going on yet, though?"

He tosses his sketchbook back at me. "She's in there, isn't she? Why do you look like you're about to jump me? Wait, you don't-"

"Don't go showing that around." I chuck the sketchbook back at him, and this time the throw is hard, and the book crashes into his legs before dropping to the floor. He picks it up, smoothing the pages like they're made of porcelain or some shit. "She doesn't need a reputation. Let her know what she's getting into first."

"Dude, if you've got some sort of claim on her, just say the word. I'll leave her alone from now on."

"No claim. But yeah, I am telling you to back off."

"Telling me? I just offered to give her up when I have plans with her tonight. What the fuck is up with you?"

"Nothing. Just back off, and nobody else sees that sketch."

"Done. But you better work fast. That girl's got a fan club, and she doesn't discourage any of them."

"It's been real," I say, and leave. Jasper's mom tries to offer me something to eat when I pass the kitchen and I hear the laugh in Jasper's voice when he calls my last name.

I don't turn back.

At Isabella's I work on keeping myself from bringing up Jasper. As far as she's concerned, I know nothing about her and Jasper.

"Let's go," I say outside her door, motioning for her to follow. I let her know I have to pick up Max first.

"Who's Max?"

Forks High. The kids never talk about the most important things. I guess I should be happy about that, on second thought.

Isabella scribbles a note to her parents, grabs her big bag and comes along.

.

Max complains too much about having to sit in the backseat, and as great as the kid is, it sucks he picks the first time Isabella meets him to be annoying.

"I could switch places with you," Isabella tells him.

"No, he's fine back there. Aren't you,_ Bro_?"

"Does Dad know she's coming over?"

"Why would he care?"

"Does Esme know?"

"Let me try again. Why would anyone care?"

Isabella turns around to face Max to tell him how much he looks like me, and suddenly they're best friends.

"You guys live way out here in the woods? Are you sure it's the mansion everyone talks about and not a log cabin? Should I be worried about where you're taking me?"

I don't answer. The truth will hit her in two seconds.

"You have a gated entrance?"

She watches the gate as we pass. It's an iron one, two or three stories high, and I hope she doesn't notice our last name welded into it. I can see dollar signs spinning in her head already. That's just what happens. There's no way around it. I tell her it's rarely closed, as if that would somehow change her perception of it.

The gate is at the bottom of the hill. We have a long drive up to the house.

At the top, we go our separate ways, Max his way, and I lead Isabella toward the pool house. Before we leave, Max shakes Isabella's hand. I give him a chin nod to let him know he's doing the right thing.

She's expecting a book from me, but I really don't have that many. Even though I read a lot, I only keep the ones that leave me with some sort of impression, or that I might want to read again someday. If we keep up these book exchanges, I might have to buy some new ones.

With few to choose from, I take _Howl_ off a shelf, hand it to her, and she slips the book into her shoulder bag.

I follow Isabella as she looks around. She walks from one end to the other, peeks into the bathroom, peers out each window, and even opens the refrigerator door.

"It's real," I say.

"No pictures?"

"Not in the fridge."

"Not anywhere?"

I shrug. I don't know why I don't have any pictures out here. That's one decision I didn't make consciously.

She moves over to my guitar, propped on its stand beside my bed. She looks over at me and when I don't protest, she picks it up and strums.

"That's Senna." Jasper would be proud, I think, and then scoff at my own thought.

"Play something." She offers it to me. I shake my head.

"I don't play anymore."

Slow and careful she sets the guitar back. "Raspberries are great for creativity, but peaches, they're great for music."

"What?"

"You should try it. Next time you feel like playing, eat some peaches. You won't be able to stop yourself."

"Peaches?" I don't tell her that it's my choice not to play, not lack of inspiration.

She nods. "Do you have any?"

I laugh. I can't tell if she's serious or not.

"So, your guitar and your books are the only things in here that tell me anything about you. Only the guitar doesn't count since you don't play anymore. Show me something that tells me something about you."

I have to lead her out of the pool house and into the garage for that.

She weaves between the cars, slipping her fingers over a few of the hoods.

"Do you guys have enough cars?"

"My dad and his wife have their own garage."

"All five of these are yours?"

"Six, if you count the Mustang outside. I've been collecting them since I was fourteen."

"Oh, sure, every fourteen year old should have a car he can't even drive."

These are the types of things - her sarcasm just then, and her comment about the gate - that make me uncomfortable. I'm not sure if she's reacting negatively and going to hate me deep down, only pretending to like me, or realize just how rich the Cullens are and like me more _because_ of that. I think I might have brought her here too soon, should've waited until she got to know me better.

"I've never seen you drive any of these."

"I only take the Mustang to school these days. Want to take a ride? Pick one."

She's on the other side of the garage by the Porsche. I'm sure she'll pick that one, but she passes it.

"A Volvo? This doesn't' seem like you."

"It isn't me."

"Then they're not all yours?"

"It's mine, a - an inheritance."

I can tell by the way she looks down, the news of my mother has made its way to her. Although spiraling through the rumor mill, I can't be sure how much of what she's heard is true.

"So, pick one."

"The big one." She points to the Jeep.

"You know what? Do you have your camera with you?"

"Several." She pats her bag.

I tell her to get in. I know exactly where to take her and the Jeep is the only way to get up those roads.

The Jeep climbs, swerves, jerks and tilts up the mountain, dodging trees. Isabella's knuckles are white, her arms stiff against her seat. Branches hit the window beside her and she ducks out of the way.

"You're okay," I tell her.

She gives me a tight-lipped smile.

"Hey, you know Jasper?" I just blurt it out like the answer means nothing to me.

"Yeah, he says you're best friends."

"He said that?"

"Not exactly like that. I think he used the word 'buds.' Like oldest buds, or something like that. I think it translates to best friends. Does it?"

I look over at her and she points at the windshield for me to watch the road, or dirt path. "Well, yeah, we've been friends for a long time."

Even though I make every effort to hold it in, the warning comes out anyway. "Jasper isn't what he seems, okay? Not to girls."

I can feel her eyeing me and I prepare myself to answer questions. I want to warn her but without hosing Jasper.

"So, he isn't a womanizing man-whore?"

She catches me off guard and I laugh. It's a real relief that I don't have to explain anything.

The Jeep takes one more lurch and we're as far as we can go in this thing. The rest of the way will be a short hike to the top.

She's got those boots on over her jeans. I take her hand so she doesn't slip, and we climb. At the top she walks through the tall grass blades to the edge of the clearing. Her eyes are wide and if she can't take her eyes off the view, I can't take mine off her.

"Look at the trees from up here," she says. "There's like, thousands, and we're higher than all of them."

She stares out for a good five minutes not saying a word.

Like in a trance, she pulls a camera out, drops her bag off her shoulder and starts taking pictures from the aerial view. "Look at them all. You could jump and it seems they'll catch you."

"Don't jump," I say, the unpredictability in her I've gotten to know up until this point has me thinking she's just nuts enough to challenge the trees to catch her. She turns her camera on me.

"Why are you taking pictures of me?"

"Why not?"

I gesture with my hand toward the view behind her.

"It's not just nature I want shots of. Well, it is, but I mean, people too. Humans in nature and as a part of nature. People like to forget where they come from. I want to remind them."

"Remind them what?"

"We don't come from cities or buildings, hospital rooms or bedrooms." She's shaking her head. "We come from right here." Holding the camera to her eye, she aims her lens toward the ground and takes a picture. "Nature."

"How do you plan on doing that through pictures?"

"If I do my job right, anyone who looks will see it themselves."

"How?"

"Colors, hopefully." Hanging the camera strap over her shoulder, she moves closer to me. "How many novels have you read?"

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. How many books have you read?" She lifts my hand and opens my fingers. "More than five?" She lifts my other hand. "More than ten?"

I nod. "More than ten."

"And how many times have you come across a description of a person? You probably couldn't count if you tried. But how many times are the characters' appearances compared to nature? Sky blue eyes, sage green eyes, amber hair, sandy hair, raven hair, or my favorite, earth brown. Like the color of earth is the same everywhere." She rolls her eyes.

"Take you, for example." She waves her camera. "My subject a second ago."

She steps even closer to me, up on her toes looking directly into my eyes, our noses inches apart. "Walnut brown. No, coffee bean brown eyes." She nods in agreement with herself, and then touches my hair, fingers through the side. "Chestnut hair."

I let out a laugh.

"You're the one who asked."

"Sorry. I like this. How else would you describe me?"

"Well…" Her eyes leave my face and her hand drops to my arm, lifting at my wrist. "Your skin, white boy, isn't peach."

"No?"

"Nope. At the right time of day, I bet I could camouflage you in a barley field." She brings the back of my hand closer to her face. "Or it might be the color of pine, under the bark. Almost a perfect match." Her eyes meet mine again. "So, what are you hiding?"

"You think I'm hiding something because of the color of my skin?"

"Isn't everybody hiding something? Don't we all have secrets?"

"What are yours?" I kind of smirk at her. I do want to know her secrets.

She returns the smirk. "If I told you, they wouldn't be secrets anymore."

"Isabella… you're not like anybody else."

She smiles. "Well, you're_ just_ like everybody else." She walks past me, heading for the other side of the clearing.

"Why do you say that?" I catch up to her.

"_Wow,_" she says looking down, and I barely hear her.

Miles down at the bottom of the hill is the river, and to the far left the black waterfall. All the locals call it that because the water falls in a sort of sheer thin sheet over black rocks. I think its true name was forgotten a long time ago. The ancient wooden sign was weather damaged, and when the new one was erected, it read:_ Black Falls_.

"I want to go down there."

"The waterfall?"

"No, right there." She points directly below us. "And at night. Think of the pictures, the reflections. That water looks like tinted glass from here." When she says this, I think it's the perfect way to describe her eyes, the river from here. And I understand better what she means to do with her photography. "I can see the sky in it, the sun behind all those thick clouds. Right in the water."

"I don't know how to get there from here. I don't think there's a road; the trees are too dense."

"There's got to be a way." She captures some shots with her camera, adjusting her lens, slow and careful.

"We'd have to take a boat."

"This was the best idea." She's saying that, but walking toward the Jeep.

"Where are you going?"

She opens the car door. "Look," she glances up at the sky, "it's about to rain. The river showed me that."

I follow her glance. The clouds are darker and thickening, so gray they're almost purple. I join her in the Jeep.

"But why did you say that?" I turn the key and the engine growls to a start. "You think I'm like everyone else?"

"It was a joke, Cullen. Nobody's like anybody else. Not deep inside. Not if you really look."

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Under the sheltered canopy of fir trees and pine trees and overgrown ferns, the man in my reoccurring dream lives in a one-room house in the forest. Alone he sits in the one chair in his one room until his visitor comes. Me. He waits for me. And as I get there, as I walk through his one door, his smile reaches the trees. When I was younger I used to travel through the forest on the drier days, looking for him. I know he's not real now, even if he still finds his way into my dreams, so I no longer look for him. If somehow he is real, it can't be up to me to make him happy. I don't know where to find him.

For some reason I tell Edward about this dream. Like James, he's easy to talk to, but unlike with James, Edward and I are never high when we talk. I don't think Edward even smokes, which is odd because I know he used to. He's bought from James.

It's Monday and we're in the Mustang, Edward giving me another ride home from school.

He's been driving me home whenever James has to work. He's skeptical about James' "work," but the job in construction is real. Of course it is. How else would he explain the money to his mom? She thinks his job pays well. If she knew what he does for most of the money that pays their mortgage, she'd have a fit, even if his selling is what's keeping them housed at all.

As Edward turns into the parking lot of his little brother's school, he laughs at the man in my dreams. "That'd be cool. I bet he'd be wise."

"The wise man of the hills," I say. "He's so wise he never leaves his one room cabin." I laugh at the absurdity.

"Maybe that is wise," Edward says, and I get another glimpse of his sadness. I wonder how long he's been holding everything in. Has it been since her death? Has he let any of it out? He's good at holding back, an expert. I'm convinced the only reason I recognize it is because I feel it, too.

I move to the back seat to let Max hop in front, and when he joins us, all of Edward's attention is on him. I pull out my poetry book and jot down a poem about brothers.

There's a sun in it, and laughter, and boys who climb to the tops of trees until, like the sun, the boys are hidden behind clouds.

I've been very successful so far of avoiding Mud. He's co-owner of the Forks Lodge and only makes it home for dinner about twice a week. Those are the nights I so emphatically spend with James. Tonight, as I pass that pile of mud on my way down the driveway to my aunt's car, I remember when my uncle first began to turn to mud.

I'm fifteen again, instead of seventeen, and for two years now my only friend in Forks has been James. Across the Formica table, my aunt, uncle, and I are passing serving dishes. There are no sounds but the scraping of forks and spoons, and the soft chewing going on in my own mouth. When I look up, across from me, Uncle Phil is staring at me. I turn my face a bit, narrow my eyes at him, wipe my mouth.

"What?" I ask, when he doesn't look away. But then, without ever answering, he does look away, with a sort of flinch as if coming out of a hypnotic state.

The first few looks are easy enough to cast aside. But they don't stop. And then a year later, I'm in the bathroom, a towel wrapped around me, applying my eyeliner, and behind me at the door a shape catches my attention. He's looking at me through the mirror. When I make eye contact with his reflection, his gaze drops… where? To my shoulders? My chest?

I shut the door on him.

That night I can't sleep, the memory of my uncle staring at me with eyes that want something, and I'm not sure what, is too vivid. I slip on pants, my jacket, and my shoes, before sneaking out by way of the deck near my bedroom. Down the wooden stairs I go, and walk the six blocks to James' house, where I knock on his window. He opens it, and I crawl through.

He sees whatever is in my eyes that is begging him for silence, and asks me nothing, instead climbing into bed and holding his blankets open for me. I undress to my T-shirt and underwear and get in with him. Neither of us says a word. It's just two bodies next to each other, close, but not hugging or holding. Breathing though, sharing breath. Helping.

This isn't the first time we've depended on each other this way, nor will it be the last.

The first time I spent the night in James' bed was five months earlier, the night his father was arrested. James asked me to sneak out, and I did. No words were spoken between us that night, either.

The morning after Mud's stare rattled me in the bathroom, I call my aunt from James' room to tell her I've left for school early. Instead of going to school at all, James and I decide to skip. I'd have to go home for my books and a change of clothes, and I don't want to.

His mother is off to work and he packs a pipe. We smoke, and then the question comes.

"What happened last night?"

"Mud." I explain that this time I was clothed in only a towel, and how his eyes lingered over me. I shiver, take another pull from the pipe, relax my eyes and fall backward on the bed.

"Victoria, would you - you'd tell me if he ever touched you, wouldn't you?"

I lift my head. "He's never laid a finger on me. I don't know what he wants. Why does he look so much?" Why did his looks begin when I started developing in an obvious and difficult to hide way? Too embarrassed, I won't ask James this.

An hour later we're in the kitchen - short on provisions - cooking toast and frying bacon, the bacon grease burning my arms with each spit. No eggs are available, so I add mayo and turn mine into bacon sandwiches that crumble like pebbles with each bite. I crunch on my sandwiches until I'm holding my stomach, professing that I will never again cook bacon while possessed by the munchies. I don't even want to smell that greasy, smoky scent anymore.

James laughs. "Let's go to First Beach!" He yells it or proclaims it as if it's the greatest idea he's ever had.

"Who's going to drive?"

"Me." His grin is silly, his eyes puffy red.

"You're crazy. You're so high you can barely open your eyes."

He laughs in agreement - "I'm so high, I can't even _see_ the kite!" - and suggests we walk. Out of curiosity over how far we can get, I agree, because First Beach is nearly twenty miles away.

We make it three blocks before we're running back, chased away by rain.

When we're inside again, toppling over with laughter, dripping rainwater all over the floor, he straightens himself up and pushes my hood down. Laughter fading, he takes some of my hair into his hands. "So many curls," he says, fisting them, and his lazy smile is never-fading.

We stare, and I think he might kiss me. I put my hand on his stomach, asking for a kiss. He takes my hand, brings my knuckles to his mouth, kisses them once, and then turns away.

Butterflies have entered my stomach for the first time, though not the last. They will flutter through me off and on when I'm around him. Sometimes they'll tickle, sometimes they'll scare me half to death, while other times they'll hurt like razor blades.

"Where do we go after the last day of school?" I ask, my voice quiet and timid with budding feelings.

He faces me again. "We live on a warm beach in a hut."

"What do we do?"

"We break coconuts in half, drink the milk and then float them across the sea with messages in them telling every person who's ever wronged either of us to fuck off."

"Will they ever get the messages?"

"It doesn't matter because they'll be in the ocean, and everything in the ocean is more powerful than what's on land. The ocean can demolish the land in an instant."

Our mood has changed. We'd have been better off making it to the beach, even if we'd walked twenty miles in the pouring rain.

I let these memories slink back into the shadows they came from as I walk into James' house. This time at dinner, his mother is more cheerful. She says she's sent her resume out, applying for a better paying job so James doesn't have to work so much.

"A boy should not have to shoulder what you do," she says, scooping fruit salad onto his plate. She always insists on serving, even the second or third helpings. She comes from an old-fashioned family where the mothers do all things household for their families. They don't work out of the house. She's told us that she's the first woman in her entire family to have a paying job, other than volunteering from time to time like her cousins. "I've always said that, but finally this new opportunity has presented itself."

James never likes to talk about any of this - not to his mom or to me - so he changes the subject fast.

Last year when James' dad was sent to prison for embezzlement, their accounts were drained and a lien was slapped on the house.

As he was taken away in handcuffs, he yelled to his wife that he did it for all for her, didn't she love her dream porch that wrapped around the entire house? The one she wouldn't stop talking about?

She cried. She hit the wood porch rails with a mallet until they crashed, and James stopped her. She fell into a depression for months. It was James who had to take responsibility.

His cousin in Port Angeles introduced him to the way to make fast money.

Marcus had pointers for James: Never carry more than forty grams at a time. Never carry or store baggies in the car, or anything else that can look like an intent to sell. Store the scales far away from the product at all times. Don't get caught.

When James fixed the porch railings he built secret hideaways for his product and paraphernalia.

Aside from telling me he would only sell the best stuff, that was all James shared with me. And other than the little bit of product I knew he kept for himself in his desk drawer compartment, he never revealed exactly where in the railings his secret hiding places were.

"What's up with you and Cullen?" James asks me once we're in his room. He sits on the side of his bed.

"We're friends."

"That's it?" He's not making eye contact with me and my heart plays a little leaping frog game with the thought that James might be jealous.

I walk over to him and wait until he looks up at me. I'm trying to read his eyes.

"Yeah, James, that's it."

"It's weird, though, you hanging with him. He's one of them."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "He's not."

I want him to touch me, but he doesn't. His hands are resting on his thighs.

"I told him the truth about my mom. He's a good listener and he understands. We never knew him. Not really."

His gaze drifts past me, to the wall, maybe. He's quiet and still makes no move to touch me so I take my hand off his shoulder.

"Did you tell him about Mud?"

This is something, the subject of my uncle, that he never brings up before I do. Something's going on and I'm really compelled to just ask him if he's jealous.

"Of course not."

"Sorry I asked." He finally makes eye contact with me. His eyes are a little bit red around the edges, but that could be his residual high. "I mean, you're free to talk about that to-"

"I think he has a thing for Isabella." I say this to make him feel better about Edward, but it does strange things to his facial expression. His eyebrows almost close together like double-doors.

"He'd better get in line."

The way that sounds coming from him, his tone of voice, almost spite, makes me stop wondering if he's jealous about me, and start wondering if he's in that line he's talking about. Maybe it's just Edward who makes him jealous and it has nothing to do with me.

I recall the interaction I've seen at school between Isabella and James - laughter and easiness. I've seen her touch him, and I've seen him touch Isabella back.

You would have to be walking backwards blindfolded not to see how opposite Isabella is from me, how she can make anybody smile. James has often put effort into getting me to laugh, but with her, there would be no effort.

The feeling of wanting James to touch me has fled. Now I want to flee as well. And here, right now, is when he touches me. A hand on my waist. I back away.

"What?"

"That line. That Isabella line. How far does it reach?" Why can't I just come out and ask him if it reaches him?

"All over Forks, I guess. Every guy wants her."

"Who does she want?"

"Not Cullen if she knows what's good for her."

"You?" I squint my eyes at him. "Would you be good for her?" As soon as I ask it, I know I don't want to hear the answer. But I don't get an answer, anyway. What I get is a question.

"What do you think?"

What I think is,_ yes_. James would be good for her. James would be good for anyone.

"I have to go."

.

On my way home - mine the only headlights on the road - trying not to think about James and Isabella is like not thinking about a massive flood that's headed right at you.

They fill my lungs.

At home I write a poem about a boy and girl who fall in love in the eye of a tornado. They can be together forever if they just stay there. If they try to escape the tornado, they'll be obliterated. It drives them so crazy being stuck there that their love turns to hate. It's an ugly love, full of red-eyed rats with thin, pointy tails that reach for you.

Nobody in my poems can love if I can't.

I go to my window, and instead of seeing the outside, I see my own reflection, my curly hair.

Is it because of Isabella that I can't have the love I want? Did she move here all because of James? Is this fate stepping in front of me, blocking my path, taking control? Or can I take control? Maybe I can fight against Isabella. Fight for the James that's mine.

I pick up my phone to call James. It's after midnight and instead of calling James, I call Edward.

* * *

><p>Hi readers, old and new! I'm trying for an updating schedule. Hoping to post every Tuesday (maybe sometimes Wednesdays). Scheduling updates is a challenge for me. We'll see how well I stick to it!<p>

Reviews are always appreciated. :)


	5. Tumbleweeds

Lovely myimm0rtal is back as pre-reader and beta. :)

I'm really so pleasantly surprised by how many of you are taking to Victoria. Thank you for giving her a real chance!

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Tumbleweeds**

**Edward**

"I want to tell you something. Don't laugh."

Laugh? It's the middle of the night, I can't see a thing, and I've been woken up by a phone call.

My voice sounds like sandpaper. "Hey, Victoria, what's up?" Turning my head on the pillow, I switch the phone to my other ear, close my eyes and yawn.

"It's about love. Have you ever been in love?"

"Love, um…" The word doesn't make sense coming out of my mouth. "No."

She's quiet for so long on the other end that I almost fall asleep. "Uh, Victoria?"

"Just, shh. Let me say it."

Then I do laugh because she shushed me after a silence that lasted about five minutes. I could've had a nap in that time.

I roll to my back.

"I love James."

I sigh, throwing an arm over my eyes. "Why are you telling me this?" What is it about me that makes girls think I have any idea what to do with love, or even like? I don't even know what's going on with me and Isabella. I still haven't gotten back to Alice about Jasper, and now here's Victoria and whatever she's after. "Because I won't tell him for you." I make sure I say it before she asks.

"But do you think I should tell him? I mean, if it were you, would you want to know?"

"If you loved me?"

She laughs. "Come on. You know what I mean."

I sit up, shaking my head to wake myself a little more. Victoria and James. Everyone thinks they're a couple anyway. They act like it. They're always together. What guy would spend that much time with a girl just for the hell of it?

"Go ahead. Tell him. But not now. Not if he's sleeping."

She tells me goodnight and I _think_ I end the call before going back to sleep. I might've fallen asleep first.

My mother's in my dream again. She calls to me from her bathroom, and I freeze in the hallway, can't move. Noises come from everywhere, honking, shouting, thunder, wind, and I strain with everything that I have to hear what she says.

_Edward, stop drinking so much._

And then the dark silence. She's gone. I'm awake, sweating, greeted by tears and no more mother to listen to. I smash my face into my pillow, go to my dresser, pick up the article and read it. I don't have to since I've memorized it, but I read it anyway.

Pulling on sweats, I get ready for a run. It's cool under the shade of the trees. I follow the route I always take, through the woods to the path along the creek, where I hear nothing but rushing water and the wind beating at my head. These are the greatest sounds for clearing your mind.

I loop around where the creek disappears into a mountain of rocks, and continue through the forest back up to the pool house. I run this path so often that the undergrowth never has a chance to stand up and grow. It's a three mile run that I sometimes take two or three times depending on my mood. Today I only take it once.

Weeks before she passed away, my mother told me to stop drinking so much. Jasper and I had just returned, loud and obnoxious, from Rosalie's party. That was before she and Emmett were attached by limbs. She was proud of how she could "hold her liquor" and challenged me to a downing match. She handed me a beer, counted to three, and we threw the cans back. Emmett was laughing his head off. He thinks everything is hilarious. Life is nothing but one big joke. I finished first which pissed her off, so we did it again. It went on again, and I let her win the third time just so we could end the matches.

Alice was the only one sober enough to drive and insisted on driving Jasper and me back to my house.

In my room, Jasper was crooning some drunk version of one of his drunk favorites while I strummed nonsense on my guitar. My mom, in a robe, with messed up hair on top of her head, threw the door open and told us to keep it down.

Jasper gave her a drunken shush and a slurred, "You're disturbing Senna."

I laughed. I didn't tell him not to talk to my mother that way.

She gave me her most disapproving look that included narrowed eyes, a clenched jaw, and a head shake. I laughed at that, too.

"Edward, stop drinking so much. I hardly see my son in you when you're like this."

I told her maybe she should open her eyes because her son was right in front of her. I said that to her, and I was wrong. She was right. That wasn't her son.

I'm her son now, only she isn't here to see it. I'm too late.

Back inside the pool house I'm panting, and not feeling much better. I should've taken the run twice.

Before I shower - blasting my music loud enough to be heard from the main house - I have to tear my sheets off the bed. It's been over a week since my last dream of her. Maybe they're slowly fading away.

I shower, dress, turn down the music, then sit on my couch to read the latest book Isabella lent me,_ The Great Gatsby_.

It's hard to concentrate, though, with everything going on in my head.

Isabella snaps me out of my funk with a phone call. Like Victoria, she doesn't begin with hello.

"What the fuck are you making me read?"

Her tone makes me laugh. After she loved Ginsberg, I thought I'd give her another Beat author, so I handed over _Naked Lunch_.

"You have to finish it, sorry. Your rules."

"Everyone is fucking each other while murdering each other!"

"It's the subtext, Dear Swan."

"Don't be condescending, Dear Cullen."

I laugh again, still out of breath from my run, or the shower, or the memories.

"Get your ass over here. I have a book that's just for you."

On my way out the door I grab my keys, my phone, and the article off my dresser, shoving them into jacket pockets. I'm curious what book Isabella thinks is just for me. I smile as I steer the Mustang away from my house.

The sun's going strong, beating at the windows, warming the inside of the car, but it won't last long here in Forks. I lower the window, only mine though, since this car didn't come equipped with power windows.

At Isabella's, between the back of the sofa and the counter separating the living room from the kitchen, she tosses a book to me. I catch it in both hands. It's big and thick.

"You'll love it. The hero has butt sex with a nun."

"Wait. With a nun, as in Catholic?"

"Absolutely." This word ends in a smile that sticks. "It's the subtext, Dearest Cullen. Get to reading."

"Later." I set the book on the counter.

My phone buzzes in my pocket.

"It's Max. Hang on." As I turn around, listening to him yammering away about why I left without asking him if he needed a ride, I hear Isabella behind me saying that I dropped something.

I tell Max I have my own life and can't always be at his beck-and-call, and that I'll be home in time to take him to his soccer game. When I get out of the conversation with Max and face Isabella again, I see what she's holding. It's open and it's obvious she's already read it.

I can feel myself glaring at her and I don't stop, even when she seems to shrink away.

"That fell out of _my_ pocket, right?"

"Yeah - I -"

"It was folded up, but you thought you had the right to unfold it?"

"I didn't know it was… private." She looks scared.

"I'm not crazy."

"I know."

"Or morbid."

She shakes her head. "But you carry this around? Why?"

I turn from her, facing the living room, my eyes landing on that snow dome.

"Why?"

Can't she take the hint that I don't want to talk about it? "Forget you saw it."

I feel her hand on my shoulder. "Why do you carry it?"

"Can't you let it go?"

"I can't. I'm your friend. I can't."

"You really want to know?" I face her again.

She nods.

"It's so - so I don't forget, okay?"

Her forehead creases. She looks confused. "Why would you forget? How could you?"

"Look, she was talking to me just before, before I found her. She thought I was listening, but I wasn't. Because I was ignoring her, I don't know what her last words were. I'll never know. I don't want to be that person. This-" I take the edge of the article she's still holding and shake it in her hand "-reminds me. I won't be that person."

"Edward…" Her head is cocked to one side. She's feeling sorry for me. I don't want her pity, but seeing the concern on her face, and just having made what feels like a confession makes my eyes water up. I dig at the corner of an eye with my knuckle. I take a deep breath in and hold it, afraid of what might happen if I let it out.

Her gaze drops to the open article she's holding, and then rises to me. "This is your guilt."

I motion with my hand for her to give it back. She starts to offer it to me but pulls away.

"You carry this everywhere?"

I don't answer. But because she knows my secret, I can no longer hold my breath or keep my tears in. They leak out with my exhale and I try to push them off my face, but I can't stop more from following and I can't look at Isabella. I've never cried in front of anyone but my mother before and I don't know how to handle it. My jaw clenches, my throat tight.

"Let me carry it. Can I? Let me carry it for you. I'll keep it safe, and if you ever want it back, all you have to do is ask."

The tightness in my throat expands down to my chest. "Where-where will you keep it?" My voice cracks like an old, rotted piece of wood.

"Let me worry about that. I'll keep it safe, okay?" She's folding it up, and I'm working hard to hold back sobs. The article is disappearing into the pocket of her jeans. Will she forget about it? Will it go through the wash with her jeans? I almost reach into her pocket to take it back. My heart's pounding hard enough for me to recognize I might not be okay in the head. It was better before anyone else knew.

"Everybody knows that onions make a person cry. You've heard that, haven't you?"

What does this have to do with anything?

"But celery…" She rounds the counter to her refrigerator and pulls out a celery stick. "Little do people know, celery stops your crying." She brings it over to me and holds it up to my face, under my eye. Then she moves it beneath my other eye.

I laugh - can't help it.

"See? Stopped your crying."

"Wasn't the celery."

"Sure it was." She sets it on the counter behind her.

She stopped my crying, though. She might have pressed me to talk about it more, which would've made me cry harder. But she knew what to do to stop the tears. And she must have known I didn't want to cry. Not in front of her, or anybody.

Maybe it_ was_ the celery.

I wipe my face for the last time.

"Isabella, could you not - don't tell anyone I needed the celery. It's embarrassing."

"Oh, no!" She covers her mouth, her eyes wide. "Too late. I already sent Alice a text." I laugh again. Then she rises to her tiptoes, still needing to press on my shoulder for me to bend down so she can reach my cheek. She gives it a kiss. "Everybody cries," she whispers.

I could pull her into my arms.

I'm about to before she steps away from me when her mom clunks down the stairs carrying a box wider than she is; she has to crane her neck just to see around it. The edge of an "Open House" sign is sticking out the top. I try to help her out.

"I got it," she says. "But how about the door? And, Izzy-B, grab my keys for me, will you?"

I raise my eyebrows at Isabella. _Izzy-B_?

"Shut up," she says, even though I haven't said a word.

After the box is in the van, Isabella introduces me to Renee as Cullen.

"Will you be staying for dinner, Cullen?"

"Edward," I say.

"Mom, dinner is six hours away."

"I've got an open house today. I'll be picking up Chinese. Just wondering how much I need, is all." She looks at me, waiting for an answer. I'm pretty sure Isabella already denied me, and I, in a humiliated way, just want to get out of here.

"I - have to take care of my little brother."

"Well." Her smile is nice and it widens slowly just like Isabella's. "Bring him along."

Dinner with a family, possibly all together at one time, is exactly something I want to include Max in. I look at Isabella.

"Yeah, Edward, bring him along."

.

On the way back with Max, I let him choose the music.

We're coming straight from his soccer game so he's still in his uniform, and changing out of his cleats.

"Why doesn't Dad ever come to my games? Josh's parents go to all of them. They haven't missed one."

"Aren't I enough?"

"No."

I look over at him. Of course, I shouldn't be enough. It was a failed attempt to both change the subject and make him smile. I shift my eyes back to the road.

"He's just, you know, he's busy. With surgeries. People still need surgeries on Saturdays."

"Not all the time. Sometimes he just does other things. You know that. I hear you yelling at him about it."

I close my eyes in a long blink. Our father is rarely home both because of work, and by choice. I can't deny it. "I'll talk to him, buddy. Okay? I'll talk to him."

When we pull up to Isabella's house, there's an ambulance in her driveway. I know this is because her dad is an EMT, but I can feel Max freaking out. I explain why there's nothing to worry about.

It's not always easy for either of us to look at an ambulance.

Before the ambulance got to our house to pick up our mother, Max was banging on the bathroom door. I don't know what brought him there, although thinking back, it must have been my yelling - yelling at our mother to breathe. I couldn't let Max see her like that, and I didn't want to leave her alone, so I locked the door. I locked myself in with my mother and I locked Max out, all by himself.

Maybe nobody would know what's right in that situation, but me, at seventeen, I couldn't even see through my tears.

I heard the siren through the window.

"Let them in!" I told Max through the door. "Let them in and I'll meet you downstairs, buddy."

I made him stay away while the men gathered our mother. When they wheeled her body out, her face was covered. Max never did see her and that's the one thing, knowing what I know now, that was the one thing I'm certain I did right.

He was so angry with me, though. I tried to hug him but he wouldn't come near me. He was smashing things. He smashed the TV. If he had tried to smash me, I would've let him.

I stood and watched him smash whatever he wanted until, just as I had done when I first found my mother, I sank to my knees.

.

Every glass of water on the table has a slice of lemon in it. There's a vase holding some kind of tall purple flowers in the center of the table.

"Lavender," Isabella whispers across the table to me. "My mom always adds lavender to the table because their scent is calming and reduces stress. She says the worst place to argue is at the dinner table. Lavender helps with that."

I can't smell them, though. Not over the smell of all the Chinese food. I wonder how a scent you can't even smell would help. I can see where Isabella gets this thing she has for remedies or superstitions or whatever they are. I remember when she told me eating peaches would help me play the guitar. And she said something about chamomile the first time we met. I wonder if she believes all this.

"What about chamomile?" I ask her, but her mom answers, spooning rice onto her plate.

"That's good for burns. Or to relieve anxiety." She passes me the box of rice.

I frown at Isabella, confused.

"Up-tight-ness," she says, as if she's reluctant to say it. She even cringes, her shoulders lifting. "I didn't know you yet. And you _were_ rude. Admit it."

I smile at her, but shake my head. "You were confusing."

"All women are confusing," her dad says. "That's their job." His voice is deep and gruff, reminding me of his hand shake when I first met him. It was a firm handshake and he didn't take his eyes off me. I tried not to look away, either. It's hard to see his smile under his mustache, but it's there, and often enough that he's not too intimidating.

Renee insists that we all use chopsticks, even when Max complains that he doesn't know how.

She tries to show him. "Hold them like this. See? You got it."

He doesn't "got it," though, and out of frustration, he starts stabbing at his food.

I laugh. "Whatever works."

"What are your plans after graduation, Edward?" Charlie certainly doesn't beat around the bush. He asks me this as if I'm Isabella's boyfriend and he's sizing me up. My glance immediately swings to Max who's pretending to concentrate on his chopsticks.

I clear my throat, not wanting to have this conversation in front of my brother. I'm not even sure of the answer anymore. "I haven't decided yet."

"But you will go to college, won't you?"

"Just haven't decided where, yet." I kick Max's leg next to me to get his attention and flash him a smile. Thankfully he smiles back.

"I'm not going to college," Isabella announces in a tone that could be either hostility or sarcasm. I can't decide which.

"Here we go again," Charlie says, leaning back in his chair. I wonder if Renee might hand him a lavender stem to relax him or something.

"You're not?" I ask.

"The doors are not closed," Renee tells me. "She's applied to several, including Cornell. Just wait until she's accepted. She'll be singing a different tune."

"It's only one year," Isabella says. "Just one year for travel and photography. That's all I need. Then college, okay, you overbearing oppressors?"

"Oppressors," Charlie says, shaking his head down at his plate, but he's chuckling a little. It seems this is a common conversation here. Charlie looks at me. "I know your father." He says it like it's a good thing. I give him a sort of smile, because I guess that's what he wants. "I knew him back when Renee and I lived here years ago. Sometimes I run into him at the hospital. A kind man. Just as personable as ever."

I have nothing to say since I don't agree, but I'm not about to start complaining about him. Max doesn't hesitate, though.

"He never comes to my soccer games."

"When do you play?" Isabella asks after she slurps up some noodles. I like the way she grins after she does that, like it's fun.

"Saturdays. Edward says he has surgeries."

"Can I come sometime?"

My chopsticks fall to my plate before I realize I've let them go. One of them bounces off and then lands on the floor. "You'd want to?"

Renee hands me a replacement chopstick.

Isabella shrugs. "I've never been to a soccer game before."

Her mother pets her head. "We tried to get you to play. You've always hated sports."

"I hate playing them, but not watching them. Right, Dad? I watch basketball on TV with you. Tell her."

"Yeah, Renee. As long as she's accompanied with a book, she'll watch whatever you put on the TV."

They all laugh, even Max. And I wonder how we can get this dinner thing to happen again. For Max.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

In the middle of a bubble on my comforter, James sits, his expectant eyes on me. Curbside, as he dropped me off, I told him that I needed to talk to him. He followed me into the house and up to my room where I closed the door.

My aunt's at the hospital and Mud's at the lodge, but I turned the lock anyway. Leaning against the door, I fiddle with my fingers, move to my desk, pick up a pen, put it down.

It's been four days since I've decided to tell him that I love him. I can never work up the courage to say it. I remember my poem about the huge coward who wants to be invisible.

I will be seen.

For a second, I wish I was high right now.

But, no. I have to say this sober, and he should be too, when he hears it. I go to him, place my hands on his shoulders and search his eyes. He hasn't smoked, not recently.

I back away.

"What are you doing, crazy?"

"Um-" I sit on the bed beside him. "I have to tell you something. Seriously."

"Tell me."

"Not yet." I turn to face him, bending one leg to rest on the bed while the other one hangs over the side, toes grazing the carpet.

How does a person go about something like this? My heart's flying circles in my chest like a caged bird trying to break its way out. Its wings are batting against my insides, making me all out of breath. Maybe I should just kiss him and see what happens.

I look at his lips.

I look away.

"Victoria?"

I bring a hand to the side of his face and let my thumb drift down his cheekbone. His eyes are so bright blue but they don't offer me any truths. His hand comes to mine on his face and he clasps my fingers.

"Are you - are you okay?"

I take my hand back. "What I have to say, it will change everything. It might make things bad. I'm not sure. I can't tell."

"Whatever it is, you can tell me. You know that."

I pick up a pillow, hug it close, and for a little while consider changing the subject. But I can't take the thought of him going after Isabella without knowing how I feel.

"James, I feel you…" I'm looking at the wall behind him. "In my heart."

The small unsure laugh that escapes him tells me that he doesn't get what I'm saying.

"I feel you in my heart, too, Victoria." A pause, and then, "What's going on? You sure you're okay?"

"No." My voice shakes. "I mean, I, I love you." My eyes slow dance over his face to his eyes, but without really seeing him. I'm afraid of what I might see. "I love you in a _non_-friend way."

I release a breath full of nerves and focus on his eyes now, which have widened, and he's scooting away from me, and in this millisecond, I know what an irreversible mistake I've made.

The pillow falls to the floor.

"Victoria," he says, and this pause lasts too long. _"Victoria_." His voice is too quiet, and it's like he feels sorry for me, or for what he's about to say.

"Never mind. Just forget it."

His hand reaches for me, but can't seem to decide where to land until it floats back to his own leg. "I-"

"Don't say anything."

"No, I just - I need a minute. To think." His head drops into his hand, which sweeps through his hair.

"It's okay. It's nothing. Forget-"

He interrupts me, his eyes aligning with mine again. "You know you mean more to me than anyone else-"

"Don't."

"But-"

I start to get up but he takes me by the shoulders and keeps me there, facing him.

"Listen, Victoria, I didn't expect - you're amazing. Okay? More amazing than anyone I've ever known. But I don't think we're right for each other. Not right now. Not in a non-friend way."

"I said forget it." I go over to the door and open it, hold it there, waiting for him to walk through and I refuse to look at him.

Minutes pass as I stand with the doorknob in my hand and James just sits there.

I shake the door back and forth in case he hasn't gotten the hint yet.

"You said this might make things bad. It doesn't." He comes over to me. "Does it?"

I don't answer and won't look at him. I motion with my hand for him to walk through the doorway.

"Is it love or nothing?" His hand comes to my shoulder, and I push it away. "It isn't love or nothing for me." He walks through.

He's gone and I want to write a poem, but after shaky fingers fumble with the lock just to get my poetry book open, there are no poems in my mind, so I start to translate old ones into French. I'm not even sure the grammar's right, but I don't care.

I won't cry.

.

The river-wide distance between James and me over the next few days is unsurprising. He's trying to be regular and I'm trying to be something different. I'm trying to be someone who isn't in love. And I'm caught by this current that's flowing away from him.

He asks me if I want to get high, and I don't. He asks me if I want to come over, and I don't.

It's Friday and we're sitting in his car after school in the parking lot. He hasn't backed out yet, or said anything, but almost all the other cars have cleared out.

"Isn't there anything I can do?" James asks. "How about this weekend? What do you want to do?"

My arms cross over my chest. "You know, if you get a real girlfriend or I get a boyfriend, we won't be able to be friends like this anymore. Maybe we should start getting used to that."

There's a long silence and I'm looking everywhere but at James.

"Seriously, what girl is going to be okay with me climbing into your bed every once in a while? Nobody would ever believe that nothing goes on under the covers."

"There's no girl."

"But there will be, James. I mean, come on. You know there will be. And am I supposed to watch? We should just stop this. Stop all of it." Why does this feel like I'm breaking up with him? I can't help but laugh at that.

"Victoria…" It's a whisper, and the pain in his voice pulls my eyes to his. This time the redness in them isn't from a high, and it's accompanied by wetness. "Is this it? It just stops? Just ends?" The tears in his eyes, I can't stand to look at them. I've really hurt him, and that's not what I set out to do. The last thing I want is to lose him as a friend. He's the best friend. It's not his fault that I love him and he can't love me. But after everything, can we still work as just friends?

"Is that what you want?"

"I don't know. What do people do in our situation? How can I turn off love? And you know what? When I feel this way, you're the person I'd go to for help, but you can't help me with this, can you." I don't really state this as a question, but he takes it as such.

"I might be able to help. Remember that time I kissed you and you laughed?"

"It's not nearly the same thing."

"Maybe not. Or maybe I was thinking the same things you are now. And maybe I decided that being friends with you was better than nothing. And maybe I had to learn to be friends with you again. I mean, instead of hoping for something more."

"You hoped for something more?" My arms drop to my sides, hands gripping the seat and then slipping beneath my legs. "That went away?"

"I forced it away. And now… so much has happened since then." He shakes his head. "We're both different people. Mostly me. I'm different. And not in a good way. I'm not proud of myself. I used to be, but not anymore." There's a quiver in his voice. "I am what I am, though, right?" He laughs at himself and it's so sad. There are more than just tears hanging out in his eyes. Something's all over his face that looks like disappointment.

"James." I take off my seatbelt and reach over to hug him. I just have to. He hugs me back. I fit so perfectly in his arms. Can't he feel this?

"Are we friends or are we nothing?" His arms are wrapped around my middle, his hand moving up and down my side.

I think back to that first night we became friends, when I'd argued that he was a boy. Maybe I was onto something then. Thirteen year old me knew more than seventeen year old me. But I can't imagine the last almost five years of my life without James. And I can't imagine a future without him, either.

"I don't want to be nothing. Thinking of that, that feeling sucks worse than anything else."

"Yeah. Fucking sucks."

I pull back from him and look into his eyes.

"Do you need time away from me?" he asks.

I decide to make plans with him this weekend, try to pretend like we're the same as always. But whatever we do, it can't be just the two of us. "We could go to Edward's party tomorrow."

His eyebrows arch. "You want to go to Cullen's party? You? With this crowd?"

I sit back in my seat. "He invited me."

And as we're talking about him, Edward is walking toward us with Isabella. I look back and see his old, loud car parked several empty spaces away.

On her toes, Isabella says something to him. I see him look over at us in the car, and then she leaves him standing there as she makes her way to James' window and knocks.

He lowers the window.

"Hi, James."

She tells him Cullen's having a party tomorrow. She calls Edward 'Cullen' while she calls James 'James.' My eyes move to Edward who's yards away. He lifts his hand in a still-wave.

"I've heard," James says.

"You guys should go. Are you going?"

James looks over at me. "Yeah, I guess we are."

"Great!" She squeezes his forearm. "See you there." She runs back to Edward, and I look out my window because now I know there are tears that won't be stopped. You know when you can stop them and you know when there's no possible way.

"Happy now?" James asks.

Guys really need to get a fucking clue.

I ask him to go to the party and he acts like I'm crazy. Isabella asks him and he doesn't hesitate. The fact that James chooses then to pull out of the parking lot brings more tears like magnets from my eyes down to my chin. My neck is craned so far to the right so that he can't see me that I'm starting to get a kink in it.

When he turns on his music I take a chance to sniffle, and then as I pretend to block the non-existent sunshine from my eyes, I wipe my tears.

In English last week I saw Isabella talking with, and even smiling at, Lauren. After whatever conversation they had was over, Isabella took her seat at the desk next to me and turned to say, "That girl likes to be pet until she purrs, huh?"

That made me smile. I was so prepared to hate her that it knocked me back when I had to try harder to do it. I found myself thinking: regardless if what she says about Lauren is true, Isabella was just friendly to her and then spoke behind her back. That's a bitchy thing to do. That was a Lauren thing to do. So, I was able to hate her all over again. My smile faded into a frown.

"Oh, sorry, are you friends?"

"Not even close," I said.

As it turns out, I no longer have to try at all to hate Isabella.

By the time James pulls onto my cross street, I've got my crying under control.

"I haven't written one poem all week. Not even in my head."

"What does that mean?" He turns down the music as if I might have a long, important answer for him. All I say is, "I don't know," and I turn the music up myself.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading! I hope you're still with me. :)<p>

**The book Isabella lent Edward is called _Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates_, by Tom Robbins (A Tom Robbins influence has made its way into almost all of my fanfiction stories.)


	6. Scattered

**In the Debris**

**Scattered**

**Edward**

Because I promised Max, I try to get my dad to his soccer game. I have to get out of bed an hour early to catch him before he leaves for the hospital. Luckily my mother was absent from my dream, so I don't have to fight any of _that _off, or face my father swollen-eyed.

In the entryway, my father, finishing off his tie, watching himself in the wall mirror, answers that he can't make it to tomorrow's game. I tell him he should try harder.

"Son, when they play him more, it will be worth my while. He rarely gets played."

I could have dealt with that, calmly, if I hadn't just caught Max appear on the stairs, and then turn to head back up. My heart sinks for him; my fists tighten.

His own father.

I know Max has walked away. He wouldn't stay for more, but I keep my voice low anyhow.

"How can you say that? Support is support! It's not what _you_ get out of it, it's what _he_ gets out of it. Even I know that. And, hey, for the record, I don't think you deserve him, but he wants you there. Get yourself there. Your youngest son just heard what just _fucking_ came out of your mouth."

His face drops. I see enough of a change in him to know he cares at least a little, but all he follows with is a chew out for swearing at him. I walk away, flashing him the finger over my shoulder.

I go for a run before my shower. I can run until Max's game on Saturday, and I still wouldn't get my father's shittyness out of my system.

On the way to his school I try to cheer Max up without letting on that I know what he heard. I tell him how much I'm looking forward to seeing him play.

He looks at me and there are fucking tears in his eyes.

"I'm no good," he says.

"What, man? You're getting better all the time." I steer out of the woods and into town.

"Coach only plays me at the end."

"It's fun, though, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"Well, that's what counts, right? You're great at basketball - you're first string there. You can't be the best at everything; that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the world." I try to laugh while the rest of me cringes, and my hands fist the wheel, hoping this works.

I see his smile, the one he can't hide but tries to. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. I rough up his hair.

.

It's partly because I'm pissed at my father, but mostly because of Isabella that I agree to throw a party on Saturday night.

Alice is the one - big surprise - who starts pushing for the party.

"There's nothing going on this weekend. Nothing." The words spurt from her mouth at lunch and in front of Isabella, who reiterates how she's heard all about Edward Cullen's parties and she won't feel a real part of Forks until she experiences one.

I cave, knowing I'm falling hard for a girl who I'm unsure is falling for me.

Somehow it feels good, anyhow - good to want something. Someone.

I tell them Saturday, not tonight. I don't think I can get Max out of the house, and I have no idea what my father or Esme's plans are later.

My father did call me this morning, though, to tell me he and Esme would be at Max's game.

"We're leaving immediately after. A quick trip to Seattle, and I don't want to hear anything about that from you. I had to rearrange a lot to be at this game, postponed a colleague lunch."

I wondered if he wanted me to congratulate him, if he's proud of himself because it took him extra work to be at his son's game.

"Max'll be happy," I said before ending the call.

Because my father's going, I don't invite Isabella to the game. I'd rather have her there than my father any day, but Max needs our father.

.

On Saturday night, with the help of Alice's always dependable word-spreading, all five rooms from kitchen to living room are jammed with people, not all from Forks High, when Isabella walks through the front doors between Alice and Rosalie.

I try not to go right up to her, see if she comes to me. Jasper appears instead.

"Back in the game, Shorty?"

"Not making a habit of it."

"Hey, Edward. Hey, Jasper." It's Alice, all smiles for Jasper. I catch her eye and shake my head.

"Not yet?" she mouths with disapproving eyes.

I pull her aside. "We talked. I don't think he's ready for you and him." Someone bumps me from behind and I knock into Alice. I catch her before she falls over. "He thinks you're girlfriend material, okay? But he has the mentality of a twelve year old. He's not ready for that."

"Girlfriend material!" Of course that would be all she'd pick up on.

I look past Alice to Isabella, who's getting a cheek kiss from Jasper. "Hey, sexy," I hear him say, and Alice hears, too.

"Sexy, maybe, but not girlfriend material, right?" Alice asks me.

"Not for Jasper," I say, hoping.

"Mike, maybe." She smiles.

I shake my head. "No way."

"Why not? They had something going on over the summer, you know?"

I feel my hand reaching for the back of my neck, and my face must be visibly cringing. Not Newton. A different Mike, I tell myself, and no way in hell am I asking.

On her toes, Alice tugs on my shoulder. "You're one in five billion, Edward." And then she's off, too happy with what I consider bad news and she considers good.

Isabella has made no move to come to me, and in fact, she's moving farther away. In my mind I decide to let her get as far away as she wants, but my body has other plans and I'm rounding the crowd toward her.

"You don't greet people whose parties you attend?"

She covers her mouth as she laughs. She's wearing those bracelets I saw the first day I met her. This time the noise they make is drowned out by Three Dog Night. Someone turned it up and Isabella has to shout over Jeremiah the Bullfrog in order to be heard. "You were a little busy, Party Boy."

"A host's job…" I shrug.

"Where's Max tonight?"

My eyebrows raise and my jaw might drop a little as I hear her ask about Max. There's no hiding my Max-style grin. I won't let Newton or Jasper or anyone get to me. I can't. Not when she's the way she is.

She was new, I remind myself, and my own past behavior is probably not anything she would like either. "His friend, Josh, took him in for the night. Can I take your jacket?" It's buttoned up and I want to see what she's wearing underneath, but she shakes her head.

"I'm heading outside with the girls. I hear there's a keg."

I walk with the three girls toward the back, although once outside I'm pulled away by Victoria who's tugging me by the arm, announcing she needs to talk. She sounds mad. We go to the right of the pool and up the hill. We're in a tunnel of fir trees, not easily seen here by the growing crowd below - huddlers who appear to be circling and bumping into each other like hornets over the keg.

"I did it. I told him."

"Not good?"

"He doesn't love me. I think I've ruined everything!"

I don't know what to tell her. I want to assure her that nothing is ruined, but I'm not sure of that. I have nothing to say.

"He likes Isabella. I don't know why that makes everything worse."

I take her shoulders. "What?"

"He wasn't even willing to come to your party until he found out she wanted him to. What is it about her? I mean, I get it, she's cool, but what makes her so special?"

I can tell her a hundred things about Isabella that make her special, but that would only make Victoria feel worse.

"Does Isabella like _him_?"

"Look at them. See for yourself." She gestures down the hill and I see them as clear as she does. Isabella is holding James by the arm. He takes her to the keg and fills up her cup. I have no idea who even brought the keg.

"I know you like her, too. What is it about her?"

I try to laugh. "What are you talking about?"

"Shut up, Edward. It's obvious."

"We're just Book Buddies," I say, and she laughs. I made her laugh, at least that's something I can do for her. "Does she know?"

"If she does, she doesn't seem to care."

My eyes drift back down toward Isabella and James, still at whatever it is they're at. I shake my head as if that could make it all stop. Jasper? Maybe Mike? And now James? How does Isabella seem like two different people?

"Every time I think I know her, it turns out I don't."

"I'm getting a drink. Do you want anything?" Victoria asks.

"I could use a fucking bottle." I haven't had a drink since my mom passed away, though. Am I really going to start now over someone who doesn't seem to give a shit about me?

The crowd below changes about three times before Victoria comes back with a blanket, a bottle of tequila, and Isabella. How does this happen? I start to walk away.

"Oh, no you don't. If I have to endure it, so do you." Victoria hands me the bottle, lays the blanket out, pulls on my arm, and orders me to sit down. I remember she's going through something worse. She put herself out there, at my advice. I sit.

"Endure what?" Isabella asks, then taking the bottle from me, downs a sip. She passes it to Victoria, who declines.

I frown at Victoria. "I thought you wanted a drink."

"I've suddenly lost my appetite."

I reach up for the bottle and down about two shot's worth, following with a wipe of the back of my hand. "How about now?" I offer the bottle to Victoria.

"Share in a shot of rejection and regret? Why not?" She takes her own long sip, then ignores Isabella when she reaches for the bottle. I snatch it from Victoria and hand it over, my eyes on the ground.

"What's going on with you two?" Isabella asks. "You're both acting weird."

"Maybe the _un_weird one should leave," Victoria says.

I start to say something on impulse but stop myself.

Isabella kneels down and brings her face to mine. "I don't care about her," her whisper smells like tequila, "but are you okay?"

I look into her glass-like eyes and I know that she can make me okay, but I can't tell her that. Pulling my hand away from her ribs, which until now I didn't know I was holding, I tell her, "It's a party, Swan. Go party."

Her eyes narrow and her look is calculating. "I can tell when I'm a third wheel. I'll give you two some time, but I'm coming back to check on you. You don't look right." She pushes a finger against my chin. She's already riding on the edge of buzzed, leaning toward drunk.

I watch her walk away, the way her hips sway as she nearly stumbles her way down the hill. I want to reach out to her, pull her back, tell her she'd never be third - but nothing about this night is what I want.

"Finally," Victoria says. "But she took the bottle."

She leans against my arm.

"She's everything I want. _And_ she cares about Max."

Down below, I see Isabella passing by Jasper. He gives her a swat on the ass, and she turns, hair swinging. From this distance, and in the dark, I can't see her face, but hate that I imagine she's smiling.

"She's not the sweetheart you and James thinks she is. She plays it well. That's for damn sure."

I watch Isabella for a little longer - well, until I can't see her anymore. Is Victoria right?

I know that Isabella does act different when we're alone together than she does when we're around anyone else, or in a crowd.

Isabella comes in sight again and she's with James. He's leaning down to hear whatever she's saying. Their faces are too close. I look away.

"He's not even concerning himself with where I am. You'd never believe that yesterday he was about to cry over losing me as a friend. She makes him forget."

I look over at Victoria to see her pushing her hair back over her shoulder. The disappointment written all over her face illustrates something pretty close to the way I'm feeling. Something comes over me and I kiss her. I don't even think about it until she pushes me away.

"It-it's not…" My eyes dart over hers. "I just…"

"Okay," she says, and she's nodding. And then she's kissing me.

My hand comes to her shoulder while my mouth crosses her face toward her throat.

"It's just for tonight," she says. "Because we need each other."

"Tonight."

We're starting to lie on our sides on the blanket. As my lips return to her mouth, Isabella's face flashes behind my closed eyes. The hurt look she gave me before she left, feeling like the third wheel.

Hands on my face shove me back.

"What did you say?"

"What?" I go for her lips again.

"You called me Isabella." She sits straight up.

"No I didn't."

"Yes, you did." She scoots away from me. "You said Isabella."

My eyes widen and I give a shake of my head. I couldn't have.

"No, Victoria. She was just here. I think we hurt her feelings and… but I wasn't calling _you_ Isabella."

"Whatever, Edward. You suck. Go find your Isabella."

Shit. Tears are in her eyes.

"Victoria, I swear I wasn't-"

"I know. I know. You weren't calling me Isabella. You just happened to breathe her name as your tongue left my mouth. _My_ mouth, Edward. Vic-tor-ia's mouth. I'm not someone you can just use."

"We were going to use each other. You're the one who said it."

She stands up. "_You're_ the one who kissed_ me_ first. Just remember that."

"Right. I kissed you, not Isabella. You remember that." Who knows what about that statement is to my benefit. It made sense in my head.

Victoria stands up and becomes the second girl to walk away from me tonight.

After about three minutes of contemplating whether I should go find Isabella, as Victoria had suggested, or go after an irate Victoria, I do the right thing. I go after Victoria - the one with the tears, not the one with the crooked, tequila-induced stumble who is probably stumbling after James right about now, anyhow.

But Victoria is too hard to find in this crowd. I don't see her anywhere, and trying to move from one area to another is slow when I keep getting stopped by people shouting, "Cullen!"

I hear my name again, and a clap on my shoulder. I almost laugh when I see it's Mike Newton - Jasper calls him Fig.

"Slummin'?" His hand squeezes and shakes my shoulder a little.

"What?" I keep walking, pushing past bodies.

"Victoria, man."

"Have you seen her?"

"You must be pretty hard up." His laugh is a drunken one.

"What's it to you what I do?"

"Yeah, what is the operative word. _What_ you do."

I smile at him, nodding, put an arm around him. I walk him to the front, over to where Emmett's eating away at Rose's neck. I interrupt by shoving Newton between them.

"He's out."

Emmett takes over, towering over Newton, and shoving him to the front door.

"Hey, Rooster, it's a joke, man. Cullen can't take a fucking joke."

The door slams, Emmett laughing and making his way back to Rose's face.

He never even asked why Newton was out. Emmett just loves doing stuff like that.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Through this huge mess of a house, overflowing with shadowed faces I'd rather not see, I can't find James, and not surprisingly, in my search I haven't spotted Isabella either. Outside was brighter than inside, the way the Cullens' yard is lined with those garden lights glowing like hundreds of small golden moons everywhere. Inside all the lights are off. How I expect to find anyone in here is beyond me.

I've only had about two sips of anything to drink, but my head is starting to throb to the beat of the obnoxious music. I decide to stop looking for James; he's not worth my time.

Although without him or Edward around I'm beginning to feel really self-conscious. None of these people like me, and it's only been luck that I haven't run across Lauren yet. Back outside by the pool, opposite the hill I shared with Edward, I find a crowd that isn't from Forks High. I sit on an open redwood chair on the outskirts of their huddled circle. They're all on the ground, crossed legs like hippies listening to folk music. Some girl is playing a guitar and some guy is singing, but they keep stopping and laughing because they either begin different songs or aren't in key with each other.

They laugh again, and switch. The guy plays guitar and the girl sings, and it's all perfect now. A guy next to me takes my hand and helps me to the ground.

"Join," he says. "Don't be so out of it."

He has a vague accent and introduces himself as Laurent, which I think is a strange name, but he's French, so I guess it makes sense. His hair is tight curls, his skin is dark, his smile is full of promised friendship, but it's his accent that draws me in.

"You don't look like you're in high school."

"I'm the one old enough to buy the beer." He waggles his bottle at me.

The person next to Laurent passes him a joint and he takes a hit before offering it to me. When I take it he leans in with damp lips to my ear and says, "Be careful, La Rouge, this isn't your typical hash."

I narrow my eyes at him. Does he think this is my first time? I always get mine from James and he gets only the best.

"I can handle it," I say with a laugh that sounds condescending, and it is.

"Oh, really? You want something stronger, then? Here, take my beer." He hands it to me.

"Stronger how?"

"You'll see."

He says they're from Port Angeles, but I don't want to hear about that, I want to hear about France.

"Where are _you_ from?" I ask.

He says he's from the country, a region full of vineyards. With closed eyes I can see what he's describing. Grapevines and hills and green. I want to be there.

"Did you know I can go into a specialty shop here and find the same wine made in my region cheaper than anyone can get it in France?"

"I don't buy wine," I say, more to let him know that I wouldn't know what it cost anyway.

"No," he says, "but isn't it crazy that it's shipped all the way over here, and it's still a third of the price it would be there."

I want to hear more about France, but the passing joint interrupts us again. After another hit and finishing off my beer, a band of drums is marching through my head when I think these hits should only be helping my headache disappear.

I lay my head back on the seat of the chair behind me, trying to induce the high to take over whatever else is going on inside of me. Laurent is jabbering away beside me, but I stopped listening long ago.

Something strange is beginning. I'm feeling less anxious, but more alert than relaxed. I'm having a hard time sitting still and keeping my eyes closed.

"I'll be right back," I tell Laurent, and I think I'll find an Excedrin or something in the bathroom. Though, my stomach is starting to bother me too, so if I find James I might just demand that he take me home. Searching the first floor bathroom medicine cabinet, I find nothing in the way of pain relief. On my exit, Laurent is there.

He's wearing black trousers, and a button down shirt. He certainly doesn't dress like a teenager either.

"Did you follow me?"

"Looking for something?"

"Just something for my…" I start to say head, but then I'm thinking stomach, which would be a different something. The headache has vanished. "Stomach," I decide. "It hurts."

"That's the hash," he says, with a loud, cackling laugh. "I tried to warn you. Don't worry, it'll go away soon and you won't be able to stop laughing." He's still cackling as he says this.

I lean in closer to him. I've never felt like this before. "What did I smoke? What do you mean 'hash'?"

"Hash," he says with a shrug. "It's just the same as marijuana, you know, a little stronger and faster. Don't you like it?"

He reaches into a pocket, pulls out a plastic baggie, and offers me a pill from it. "Here. This always helps me."

When I look into his palm, the pill he's holding seems to grow right before my eyes. It's getting bigger than his hand.

"Why's it doing that?" I ask, trying to poke at it, and I find myself laughing. I've never seen a pill do anything like that. "How'd you do that?" I pick it up, which is hard because I'm reaching for something huge, but when I finally get it in my fingers, it's so tiny I can barely hold onto it without dropping it. I have one hand cupped under my clasped fingers in case I drop it. We'll never find anything this tiny if it ends up on the floor. It's smaller than an earring back.

"Go ahead," he says. "It will make your stomach and everything else feel better."

"Are you going to take that?" some girl says from behind me, and when I turn around I see Isabella. I roll my eyes and am about to say something about her to Laurent, but he's gone.

"Give me that," Isabella says.

I pop it into my mouth because if I don't she'll take it. "Get your own," I tell her.

"Do you know what that is?"

"It's for my stomach. What do you care?" But I'm getting a little scared because if the pill can grow and shrink like it did in Laurent's hand, what will it do in my stomach? I need to find James.

"Where's James?"

"I just left him out back. I'll take you to him."

"Don't bother." I push past her, and I must have pushed hard because she falls down. It makes me laugh the way she falls like a tree. I step over her, pushing past other trees.

The people around me are acting strange. It's like they're coming and going, and the house keeps changing, too. One minute there are trees growing right from the floor, and then they're gone. I'm convinced the floor is turning into mud - it's already swallowed the trees - and I'm afraid I won't even be able to walk in a minute. And the more I think about that, the harder it is to walk. I'm trying to lift my foot but it's too heavy because it's buried in mud. I'm doing it though, despite the mud, and even if slow, I'm walking, and I'm laughing because I'm defeating the mud when even the trees couldn't. But then the mud gets the better of me and I can't move at all anymore, and I just stand there laughing.

"Victoria? What's going on?"

It's Edward, and I hug him around his waist. I've forgiven him for what happened. It was ridiculous, us trying to make out. "It wasn't your fault," I say, and I'm smiling even if my feet can't move. "I wouldn't have had sex with you anyway, you know. You don't get that part of me."

I see him look around like he's afraid people might be listening, but I don't even care who hears me.

"Come with me," he says, "outside. Let me tell you I'm sorry."

"Don't even worry about it." I pat his face. "We're both dumb." I'm laughing again, and I don't even know why, nor do I care.

"I'm dumb. Not you. Come with me. It's too loud in here."

"I would if I could." I laugh harder. "It's your mansion's fault, not mine."

"What?" He's smiling now. "Did you get the tequila back?"

"Well, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Walk through all this mud?"

He looks down as if he never even noticed the mud. "You can't walk?"

I start to say no, but my voice isn't working anymore. All I can do now is mouth words. I find it all horrifying and hilarious at the same time.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't talk," I mouth to him. No matter how much I try to force my voice, there's no sound.

He lays a hand on my cheek and brings his eyes in close. They seem to be protruding from his head and I grab at them. He flinches.

"Listen to me, Victoria. You _can_ talk. You can. I think you're really high, or something. Just take a deep breath and slow down, okay?"

I nod and say, "Okay." And he's right, I can talk. "You're so right, Edward. I'm talking."

I still can't walk though. I tell myself I can, like I did with the talking thing, but my feet and my legs are too stubborn.

"The mud must be deep."

He lifts me up into his arms and my feet come out of the mud so easily it's as if there was never any mud to begin with. I look down, and it isn't mud; the floor looks soft now, and green. Maybe it's grass. It looks like something I want to lie in. It looks like home.

* * *

><p>Thanks for reading! :)<p> 


	7. Upsweep

**In the Debris**

**Up-sweep**

**Victoria**

Darkness and colors. Colors I've never seen before just hanging out, like maroon-purple-burgundy, and yellow-green-orange. These colors don't have names, they're new and belong to themselves, and they're_ fascinating_. They fade in and out, come together and disperse, so I'm not always convinced they exist at all. But they really should. The voices next to me are also fading in and out as if traveling through tunnels.

"What is she on?"

"I don't know, but she's really fucked up, man. She was talking about sinking or mud and couldn't walk."

"Give her to me."

"I'll get her home. I've only had two shots all night."

"I've had nothing."

"You lit up."

I try to follow the voices with the correct faces, but the talking is too fast. So when my sight lands on James, it stays there.

"Cullen, fucking give her to me!"

I feel myself being shifted into different arms, and I notice something's wrong with his face. It melts into my hands.

"James, your face." I mold it back together.

"Hey, honey, what are you on? What did you take?"

I point toward the direction I think I came from. "It was just pot. That's all. Just pot. Don't worry. But what are you on? You can't even keep your face together."

"Did you take acid?"

"Don't you think I'd know if I took acid? It's just pot. He called it hash."

He carries me around and I wave at who I think are people, but they look like blurred colors. Why can't they keep their shapes?

"What is wrong with everyone?"

"Victoria, you're on drugs, hon. There's nothing wrong with anyone. What you're seeing isn't real."

"If it isn't real, why am I seeing it?"

"It's a mind fuck."

"I might've fucked Edward tonight." I can't stop laughing because those words didn't warn me before coming out of my mouth. I feel kind of like all those colors, new and always changing, and uncontrollable.

"What?"

"But he fucked it up." I'm still laughing. "Hear all the different fucks? Say fuck."

"Fuck."

"But I wouldn't have. I told him so. I've never had sex with anyone yet. Do you know that?"

"Yes."

We're in the night, outside. I know it's the front and not the back because there are no miniature moons alighting the ground.

I feel a seat beneath me and sink into it. It's swallowing me and covering me. I'm inside the seat.

"What is this place?" I look around, nothing's familiar. There are walls, I'm sure, but why are they moving or dancing or breathing? They look windy, like curtains or tree branches. "Where are the moons?"

"It's my car. Close your eyes, okay? You'll feel better."

"Okay, James." I'll do anything he says. "I'll do anything you say. I'd kiss you if you had lips."

I feel the car moving, rocking like a boat.

"You don't want to kiss me."

"You don't want to kiss me. You want to kiss Isabella. Everyone wants to kiss Isabella. Isabella… Isa-bella... Oh, I see why. Her name is lovely to say. Isabella. Say it, James. Say Isabella."

"Isabella."

"The way your tongue moves when you say it. It's erotic, isn't it? Not like Victoria. Victoria's all harsh. And she's friends with Alice - listen to that, erotic too. And Rosalie, all of them. Say Rosalie."

"Rosalie."

"See? That's what it is. They have the right names. All better than Victoria."

"No one's better than Victoria."

"You have to say that because you're my friend and we're going away together after graduation."

"I don't have to say anything."

"You're so important, James. And your car -" I touch what I think is the side of the car "- is so important. Without your car, where would be right now? Would we even exist if your car didn't? And James, I know we have a biology assignment due on Wednesday, but how will I ever get to Wednesday when this day will never end? I still have to get through all those other days between now and Wednesday." It's suddenly like I'm looking at a calendar and the upcoming days in their squares seem impossible to get to. I don't think I have to do my biology assignment. "Those days don't even matter. I don't think they'll ever come. Not unless there's a tunnel long enough."

"Jesus, Victoria, what are you on?"

"I have to write this down. Do you have a pen?" I open the glove compartment, but it seems to fall out onto the floor. When I bend down to pick it up, I bump my head on it. "Damn, it's hard to get to your pens. I can't forget this, the way your car breathes and breaks and fixes itself. It's alive! It's poetry. I need to write it down." I'm getting more and more agitated that I'm going to forget all this, because once I have one thought, it's gone and another one comes. I'm near panicked about forgetting my thoughts.

"I don't have a pen in here," says James. "And even if I did there's no paper."

I give up on both looking for a pen and trying to close the glove compartment - it's never where I think it is, anyway.

"Victoria, do you see sparkles or anything? Is everything shiny, or like, shimmery?"

I look for the sparkles he's talking about, but it isn't fair that I can't find them. "It's just colors sometimes. Where are the sparkles?"

"Are the colors rainbows?"

I look for the rainbows. "Where?"

"No, I guess it can't be 'shrooms. You'd know if you ate 'shrooms."

"Gross."

I turn my head to the side and watch the car door as it moves. It wants me to watch it. I think soon it will have something to say to me. I lean in closer so I don't miss it.

"You said my car 'breathes.' Does everything seem like it's breathing or melting?"

"Yes! That's it exactly. Your car can breathe, James."

"It's gotta be acid. Are you sure you didn't take anything on a little paper?"

"No. It was a joint. Just a joint, not even a very thick one, but he bragged about it." I laugh. "And a beer. I laughed at his joint and he said I needed something stronger, but all he did was give me his beer. He didn't even give me a new one." I try to frown in a mad way, but all I can do is smile.

"You drank some guy's beer?"

"The French guy. He was funny. He could make things grow with his hand."

"This French guy, did he give you the hash and the beer?"

"One and the same." I point at him and watch my finger grow. I could touch him without even moving my hand.

"I think that fucker dosed you, hon. You're going to trip hard, okay? I have no idea how much he gave you, but you might not have even peaked yet. It's just a trip. Don't get scared. How long ago did you drink the beer?"

I bring my hand to my head trying to think about time. How long? How… long? I look at the clock in front of me, the green numbers. Or are they red? I squint at them because they aren't numbers. They're supposed to be, but they're not. "Stick figures. Time's changed."

"Okay, how about this? Tell me what happened between the time you drank the beer and the time Cullen got to you."

I tell him the events in the way I think they happened. I see Isabella falling again as if she's in the car with us.

"I don't know. I think you've got about nine hours of this ahead of you. But listen, never smoke anything you don't get from me, and don't drink strangers' beers."

"Oh, yes, Jamesie-James, the honest drug dealer." I pat his arm.

"Don't call me that."

"What? Dealer? Dealer, dealer, dealer."

"All right."

I sweep my fingers up and down his arm and kiss his shoulder. He's wearing a jacket and I try to spit the material out of my mouth. I wanted to kiss skin.

"We're here." He tells me he'll take me inside and stay until I come down, but that I have to be quiet. "Can't wake your uncle."

"Aw man, James, did you have to bring Mud into this?"

"Sorry. Are you going to be quiet?"

I nod. I'm still nodding when he appears on my side of the car, lifting me into his arms.

"Are you worried my legs don't work?" His arms might break. They're hardly attached.

"I know your legs work, but when you stand you think you're sinking and you don't move."

"That's crazy. Why would I sink? Put me down. I won't sink. There's cement below us, not quicksand. Is quicksand even real? Do you sink fast or slow?"

"I'll put you down in your room. I promise. Shh."

I put a finger over my mouth. "Shh."

Something's soft beneath me. A bed and sheets. I take off my jeans and jacket, and slip under the covers in just my shirt. The sheet swirls so daintily in the air as I lift it over me. It looks like it will never come down. It defies gravity. But then, the feeling when it does come down, when it hits my legs. The_ feeling_. I do it again - lift the sheet, watch it move in swirls, and then_ feel_ it.

"James, feel this. Oh my god, you have to feel this." Rising to my knees, I bring the edge of the sheet up to his face. His face is all one piece, so I know he can feel it. "Have you ever felt anything like this? Get in bed. You have to feel this." I shove pillows out of the way, move over and pull him down to the bed. I draw the sheet lightly over his face. "It's like putting cream on your skin, isn't it? It's like… what's it like, James?"

"Victoria, are you sure you didn't take a pill? You sound like you're on E, now. What the fuck?"

"You mean the aspirin?" I'm smiling and I can't stop. My cheeks don't even ache.

"Who gave you a pill?"

"Um…umm… the French guy."

"I'll find that guy."

"Get under the sheets."

"Okay, go to sleep." He puts an arm over me. "We'll talk in the morning."

"I'm not tired."

"Of course you wouldn't be. I think you're on E and acid at the same fucking time."

"I hope it never goes away." I smile at him. "It feels good, James. Feel this." I drift my hand up and down his arm. "Oh god, James, your arm." The jacket he used to be wearing is gone, and I'm getting skin. I sit up, and bring his arm to my face, and like a cat, I rub my face along his arm until I'm all the way up, my face against his. Even if it's scratchy, it's incredible. "Mmm…"

"Victoria - Victoria, you have to back up." Palms are on my shoulders, but they don't push me away, and I don't back up because I can't fathom why he'd want this to stop. Who wouldn't want to feel this? I move to his lap, my legs on either side of his hips, and my hand is on his T-shirt, which I know is cotton, but it feels like silk and satin all in one. My fingers feel down his chest, his stomach, lower, and then under his shirt and I'll never stop smiling.

"Victoria." His voice is different, so deep and quiet. I know he's feeling it.

"It's so good, James." My hand traces up his body and back down again, and I feel his stomach contract with a breath. He's feeling good, too. My smile grows.

"Victoria…" He's shifting beneath me, and I feel something between my legs. I push against him and a tight breath comes from him. His hand is in my hair and when he talks his voice is even more different and conflicts with what he's saying. "You have to stop, okay? This isn't you; it's the drugs."

"Stop what?" I take his fingers while my other hand continues moving up and down his torso. "Don't you want to feel this, too? It's amazing. Can't you feel it?"

I lower my face, placing my lips on his jaw, his head lolls a little, and I drag my lips along to just under his ear. There's an indentation there behind his earlobe where my lips fit perfectly.

"Victoria," he whispers, and I love the way he keeps saying my name. When I look at him, his eyes are closed. I'm making him feel good. He opens his eyes.

I smile bigger. "You like it, right?"

I see him nod. I know he nods.

"James." My whole hand, all my fingers, are moving up and down his neck. "It's okay. I love you. I meant it when I said it. You're the best person in the whole world."

"Victoria." His eyes close. "I'm not the best person. I'm not the person for you."

"How can you say that when it feels like this? You felt it, James. You did."

He lifts me off him and I curse at his strength. "You know what feels better than me?"

"Nothing."

"Water. Come on."

He leads me by the hand to the bathroom and runs the shower. "Get undressed," he says, turning around. "I won't look."

"Okay!" I say, when I'm naked.

"Shh… Get in the shower." His back is still toward me. I push the curtain aside and step in, and I think I'm on the verge of an orgasm as soon as the water touches me. The water against my skin makes me tingle and moan.

"Okay, uh… get out when you're ready. I'll wait in your room. Try to be quiet."

But I'm not about to get out of the shower. I let the water caress my face, my hair, my chest, my stomach, my legs. The water is soft fingers over my body - touching and feeling, always moving. And anywhere I want to be touched, I just turn and there the water sprays, satisfying my desire. I never want to leave. I'm not leaving. James comes back and makes me leave. He turns off the water, wraps me in a towel, but before he leads me to my bedroom, I stop to brush my teeth.

Suddenly, this is the new best feeling - better than James, better than the shower. This, I'll never stop. James is holding my towel around me because I can't with the way I have to lean against the countertop as I brush.

In my bedroom he offers me a glass of water. I wonder how it is that he knows exactly what I want before I do.

I let the towel fall. He picks it up and puts it around me again. I retake it off and climb under the sheets. James lies next to me. I grab his arm, pulling it over me, resting his precious hand on my stomach. "Stay," I say.

My bed is so small and we're so close, and I sink into him. Like the seat in the car did earlier, James swallows me with his body.

"Victoria, don't move, okay? Stop moving. Try to sleep"

I sit up, the sheet falling from my body. "I'm not sleeping. I'm not tired."

He sighs and lifts the sheet up to my shoulders. "Keep yourself covered. You should get dressed." He goes to a drawer and comes back with a shirt. I bring it to my face, rubbing it along my cheeks. I lift his hand. "Touch me, James."

"Okay, okay, lie down." We're both on the bed and he pushes me backward until my head is on a pillow that feels like a pile of feathers. He covers me with the sheet and pulls my arm toward him, the air hitting it, making the hair on my skin prick up. He takes his fingers and runs them up and down my arm while his other arm reaches over to turn off the lamp.

"Mmm." I close my eyes.

"That's right. Close your eyes. Just feel this."

"I'll feel it forever."

"And as long as you lie there and keep yourself covered, I'll do this for you. You have control over how long this lasts."

"Don't you worry, James, I'm not going anywhere as long as you're doing that to me. Your hand is like a feather. Where did you learn to _do_ this?" I think he's using one of the pillow feathers. It can't be his fingers.

"Shh…" He keeps bringing his fingers up and down my arm, and I stay still, afraid he'll stop otherwise.

I open my eyes because even though I love what he's doing to me, I'm still not tired. He's looking at me as his fingers move on my bare arm. "I love this," I say.

"Good." He smiles and I think it's the first smile I've seen from him in a long time.

"If only you could love me then everything would be perfect." The words aren't sad. I'm smiling. His hand stops moving. I push at it to start it up again. He goes.

"You don't have to, as long as we're always friends."

He scoots down, still touching my arm, and shares my pillow with me. "You know that's not going to change." His hand comes to my hair, fingers brushing over my wet curls, and that feels even better than the arm thing.

I sigh and close my eyes. "Keep doing that." As long as he's touching me everything feels like gold.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

I've made my way back up the hill to the blanket. The crowd is thinning out; the fifteen or twenty still around are faded. Behind me are loud shouts, random "yeahs" and high-pitched screams or laughter - I'm not sure which. I remember a time when I would've been right there with them, when I used to actually have fun at my own parties. This one, like the last, I'm waiting for the end.

Taking a seat on the blanket, I don't see Isabella coming toward me until she's already here. She didn't come up the hill, she came from my right, from I'm not so sure where.

"You weren't here before." she says.

I wonder if she would've been looking for me if James hadn't left.

Her drunk finger taps my shoulder, and she sways. I reach out to her waist to catch her from falling, and she plops herself on her knees next to me. She looks at me for a while as if her eyes are trying to focus.

She brings a cold hand to my cheek. "Why so blue at your own party, Goose?"

I smile at what she calls me. "I don't like parties anymore."

"Hmm…" Her hand is still on my face and I lean into it. "That sounds like a thought you might have thought before throwing this shindig."

"Guess so."

"So, that's it? That's why you're Gatsbying out?"

When I don't answer she seems to forget about her question, letting herself fall sideways, her head landing in my lap, and though I see her coming down, the shock of where her cheek hits sets me shifting.

"It's fun being friends like this with a boy," she says and it sounds like a musing sigh. Taking my hand she turns, looking up at me, head still in my lap. She starts wiggling my fingers one by one, and I think she might start doing the Little Piggy rhyme or something. "Do you like being friends with boys?"

"Yeah," I say because I understand the real meaning in her question despite her mixing up a few words. I laugh. She's already making me feel better.

Stopping at my index finger, she bends my others, and points my own finger up at me. "I have to be careful with you."

"Why's that?"

She raises her arm, fingertips scraping against my two AM shadow. "It would be easy to fall in love with you."

I swallow and hold my breath. "It would?" I barely get out.

"Yeah, probably, but we're friends, isn't that right? Don't you think so?"

I'm not exactly clear on what I'm agreeing to, but I say, "I think so."

Her hand falls, and my face misses the contact. I fight the urge to take her hand and bring it back to my face, but with the next thing she says, her hand placement is no longer on my mind.

"Is it okay if I spend the night here?"

I clear my throat. "I thought you came with Rosalie and Alice."

"No, don't subject me to that." She sits up fast, and sways a little. "No more nail painting and green masque facials. Or group mustache waxings."

"Group what?"

"I can't take it anymore. Especially after drinking, they want to take care of their faces. They say alcohol is bad for the skin." She brings a wavering finger to her lips. "Shh, it's a secret. Shh. Between you and me." She touches my chest. "Me and you, okay?"

"What secret?"

"I hate all that stuff." Her lips turn down as she shakes her head. "It's so boring! I'm someone else."

I narrow my eyes. "Who else?"

"Someone they don't know."

"What are you trying to say?"

"I was me." She aims her thumb at her chest. "I was Bella."

"Bella? And you're not you now?"

"With you I am."

"But with others?"

"They don't know me. Not like you do. I'm Bella with you."

"Is Bella another nickname?"

"Bella is me." She points to herself with her thumb again.

I'm struggling with understanding her. Is she saying she shows me a side to her that no one else sees? Is she the person I see? Or am I just seeing in her what I want to see while she's really what Victoria said - a girl who's playing us all?

"So," she says, "what are you, scared?"

"Scared?"

"Yeah, scaredy. Are you scared to have me spend the night with you? I'll sleep on the floor, you big slob."

"Which is it? Scaredy, or Slob?"

"Clearly it's Slob if you have people sleeping on your floor."

"You can stay over, and you won't have to sleep on the floor."

"Well, now you're just sweet, aren't you? An angel. Come here. Come closer."

I lean in. So close, I feel her intake of breath. "Don't tell anyone about me. I only want them to know what I want them to know. That's our secret, okay?"

"Our secret," I say, even if it's a secret I don't understand.

"Yeah," she breathes, smelling of tequila and lime. And there's another smell I can't place. A definite girl fragrance.

I help her to her wobbly feet. She leans on me as I throw the blanket over her shoulders and we walk down to the pool house. A few times I have to glance down at her, afraid she's fallen asleep walking; she's leaning on me that much.

She slips into my bed under the covers and fully dressed. I have to help her get her boots off to keep mud from smearing all over my sheets. "Wait," I say. "Stay awake."

"I want to sleep."

"Give me two minutes. Stay awake for two minutes."

I rifle through a kitchen cabinet until I find a pain reliever. I bring her the pill and a glass of water.

"Here, take this." I open my palm to her. "It'll keep you from getting a hangover. And drink all of this." I push the glass toward her.

"No. No-no-no-no! I know what you're doing." She waves a finger. "I'm not stupid. They were giving these pills out all over the place in there." She points in the direction of the main house, her eyes mere slits. "Your little friend got suckered into it before I could stop her." She tries to snap her finger but misfires.

"My little friend?"

"Victoria."

My eyes widen. "What pill did Victoria take?"

"That one. That little pink one you're giving me. Ecstasy."

"Victoria took X?"

"Yes, ma'am, and I tried to stop her. She doesn't listen to me, though. She has hate for me. But I'm serious. I know what they were doing. She thought it would help her stomach. Oh, I'm sure it helped with that…" her voice rises a few octaves "…among other things."

"Shit." I have to let James know, but I don't have his phone number.

First things first. I drop the pill into Isabella's hand. "Take this. You know you can trust me. All it is is Advil. Okay? Look, its name is printed on it." I bring my hand to the side of her head. "Take it. I guarantee you'll wake up free of a hangover."

"If, if if_ if_… I wake up at all." She gives a single nod. "You know how I take pills? I put them under my tongue like this." She opens her mouth, lifts her tongue and sticks the pill in. "Then I swallow it."

"Good to know."

She drinks only half the glass of water. "If I start trippin' you're going to pay, mister." Her eyes close, her head falling to the pillow. "May I sleep now?"

"Just one more thing, Isabella. Do you have James' number?" Most of me wants her to say no, but the responsible part of me that wants to be good for Victoria's sake hopes she'll say yes.

"Of course!" She says it with too much enthusiasm as far as I'm concerned.

"Give me your phone, so I can call him."

"I don't have it here." Sitting up, she looks around the room as if it might pop up somewhere. "But I don't need it. Lemme just give you his digits."

"You know it by heart?" And my heart clenches. James' phone number spills over her lips in a succession of seven heart piercings in a row.

"Goodnight, Isabella," I say as the phone rings against my ear.

"Goodnight, my angel," she says.

I kiss her forehead.

"Edward?" She opens her eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Lips. That would be the thing to do right now." Her eyes close again. I freeze. Her face is so close to mine and I could do it. I could kiss her right now. Our noses touch. I imagine how her lips would feel on mine. Warm. A little wet, maybe. I imagine her tongue as it touches mine. I take a deep breath, and she does too. I want this, that I can't deny. I want it. But does she? Really? In her real state of mind?

"Edward," she whispers, and my resistance is breaking.

I move some fallen blonde pieces of her hair out of her face. "Hey... I'll - I'll do this for you as soon as you ask me when you're sober. Do you think you'll ever do that?"

"Guaranteed," she says and lies down.

I lift the comforter over her shoulders.

James answers, and says he's already figured it out. He's demanding to know who gave it to Victoria, asking about some French guy, but I have no clue and the only one who may know is already releasing sleeping breaths in my bed.

I tell him I'll find out and get back to him.

I undress and get into bed with Isabella. Turning toward me, she takes my arm in hers, her head snug to my shoulder. And there's that smell again. It's in her hair and it's sweet like some kind of flower, but it's not like I've sniffed enough flowers to recognize it.

I lie there on my back, my nose in her hair, my lips settled on her forehead. She's still holding onto my arm, and I'm not about to move.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading! I really appreciate all the reviews. I've tried to reply to everyone, but a few of you don't accept private messages, so I'll thank you for your time here. :)<p>

Also, I've posted a new story titled _The Sky at Dusk_. It's a Twilight parody, written for fun. It's already completed, so postings won't disrupt the postings of_ In the Debris. _


	8. Pieces

Thank you so much for the reviews, the favorites and the alerts!

Here you go!

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Pieces**

**Victoria**

Through the window, daylight nestles around my room, settling in like part of the family, leaning against walls, sitting on furniture, warming my face, making false promises. I'm lying on my stomach, chin on my crossed arms, gazing outside. The morning is bright even if overcast. I haven't slept and I'm finally coming down, and at the same time becoming too aware of my nakedness. I turn my head toward James, sleeping beside me, facing me. His breathing is quiet and deep, his mouth slightly open. As memories of all night string themselves together, weaving down my body, twisting up my heart, tying knot after knot in my stomach, I run my fingertips through his hair over his ear and lay my lips between his eyebrows, holding them there.

He stirs.

"Victoria?" He leans up on his elbow. "You okay?"

"Did you have enough room? You're at the edge of the bed." I shimmy myself closer to the wall, and he scoots in.

"I fell asleep," he says, as if it surprises him. Maybe it does. Maybe he planned on staying up all night with me. I don't know how long I made him stroke and caress me - my arm, hand, fingers, hair. And he did it, too - right up until he fell asleep. I remember our hands clasping, twining together, sliding away, fingers against fingers and coming together again. I remember my smile throughout it all.

"My brain hurts."

He laughs. "I bet."

"I'm naked."

Even though I'm already covered, he pulls the sheet up to my neck. "Nothing happened."

"I know."

"Then what's wrong?"

"I took his stupid pill."

"You were already high, and even starting a trip, when you took that pill. You weren't thinking straight. And he dosed you. You were at a party. You didn't know. And I was there. You're fine."

"What do you mean he _dosed_ me?"

He rubs his scruffy chin. "I think he slipped hits of LSD into the beer he gave you. I can't think of any other way he could've gotten you to take acid without you knowing. It wouldn't have worked to smoke it with the hash because I don't think acid works right if it gets hot. I think Marc said something like that before."

I hide my face in his shoulder. "I was on top of you."

"You weren't _you_." James' hand brushes my head. "I don't know how much that French guy gave you, but you were… you were really out of it. You had a major trip. You were like, that's called candy flippin', E and acid together. You had fun with it. I was freaked you'd have a bad trip because you've never done anything like that before. But you were having fun."

"I should be in control of what goes into my body!"

"Yeah, you should. What's his name? This French guy."

"Laurent."

"I'll find him."

I drop my face into my hands. "Oh, no."

"What?"

I press my hands harder against my face as if enough pressure can diminish thoughts, or the past. I can't help but laugh. "I practically made love to my shower right in front of you."

"I wasn't watching, and I tried not to listen." He laughs a little, too. "I'm sure it was better than Cullen would've been."

"I told you about that?" And then I remember.

"I guess it shouldn't have surprised me. I saw you go off with him." He hands me my T-shirt from the floor. "Are you guys starting something up? Because he really wanted to bring you home last night."

"No. No, we were - it was a weak moment for both of us." I pull the shirt over my head.

Out of bed, moving to the door, he turns the handle. It doesn't open. "Just checking." A glance at the window seems to call him over and he looks out, forehead pressed against glass. I imagine the glass is cool.

"I was - I wasn't shy last night."

He turns to me with a half-smile. "No."

"I - um - did you, did you see anything?"

His smile stretches like each corner of his mouth is being tugged with thread until his dimple makes an appearance, and he drops his head, hair falling into his eyes. "I tried not to, but you kept letting the towel go and you wouldn't keep the bed covers over you. But don't worry. Whatever I saw." His eyes lift, meeting mine. "You're just beautiful. You're beautiful."

My fingers crawl through the top of my hair and I look down. "Thank you, James, for taking care of me."

He looks as if he doesn't know what to say. "But you - you _are_ okay, right?"

I shrug a shoulder. "Other than feeling dumb, I am. It was kind of fun. I mean, it was. How did you know what I was on, though? You worked it out. Have you done those things before?"

"Only with Marcus."

"Why not with me?"

Leaving the window, he walks to my desk, takes the chair and sits on it backwards, facing me, his arms resting on the high back. "Victoria, you…" he shakes his head. "Your mom, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it. If I had a choice, I mean a real choice, I don't think I would've done that. Even if I knew it would be fun."

"I'm trying, okay, to um..." My eyes follow his gaze to his jacket on the floor. I know he most likely has a joint in there, one he probably feels like lighting up right now. He ignores it, turning his attention back on me.

"To what?"

"Be right. Be good… a good person."

"After what you did for me last night, I think it's safe to say you're one of the best people."

"I sell drugs, Victoria."

"It's just pot."

His short laugh sounds exasperated. "It's_ illegal_."

Looking past him, over at my desk, I wonder how things got to be this way. Everything that happened with his dad and their house led to James selling, knowing no other way out of the mess his family was in. And it worked. His selling saved them.

Moving from the chair, he kneels beside me, cupping my face in his hands, keeping me from looking away. "I'm sorry if I hurt you."

"Hurt me when?"

"You know when. You were talking about love last night, and I know I-"

"Forget about that. I will. I'll get over you like that. I'm used to being friends with you. That's the way it's always been."

"Yeah, that _is_ the way it's always been." He lets my face go, sits back on the floor, his eyes shifting between mine, and I know him well enough to know he has more to say. Still, he doesn't say anything.

"What, James?"

"Last night…"

I'm wondering if there's something else I did, something I don't remember. Even with my T-shirt on, I pull the sheet tight around my body.

"It felt like before. Like the same as always, and I felt this kind of relief, you know?" He scratches at his temple. "I know you were trippin', and I don't mean that, that's not what I'm talking about. But it was like nothing was guarded. Everything was just right out there in the open. You called me a dealer and you know I hate that, but it's the fucking truth. And today you're all, 'it's just bud.'" He mimics the sound of my voice, or some girl's voice, drawing a little laugh out of me. "You never used to have to be high to just be straight with me on my shit. And now, today, it's different again, like there's this… this…"

"Wall between us?"

"Yeah. And I don't know what to do with that."

He's right. I feel it, too. We're used to relying on each other for everything, and now there are things we can't talk about. Questions I can't ask; answers I don't want. And last night I was in a state that made me just not care. I could've said anything.

"Somewhere along the line I guess we just grew up. We can't stay kids forever. And the thing is, you _are_ a guy and I'm a girl." I tug on my lips, knowing I've just pointed out the obvious, but also knowing it hasn't always been that obvious - the real differences between us because of our genders.

I can sense he still has more to say, but he just nods in silence and starts putting his shoes on. He says he has to go before my aunt or Mud finds him here. Before he leaves, he takes my poetry book off my desk and hands it to me.

"Write a poem for me today. I don't have to read it, but just write one. Write about that time we went fly-fishing in the river and the current kept knocking you over." It aches me, how sad his laugh sounds.

"That water was so freezing! I hated that day."

"No, you didn't."

I flinch at the truth, at his direct gaze, and how well he knows me.

"Write about freezing water. I know that's more your thing."

"I'll write about water that can freeze you in one place for as long as you want. You can stay in that one moment forever if that's your choice."

He shakes his head, smiling. "Your poems are so fucking sad. Write about sunsets and sunrises, Victoria."

"Sure."

"Do you really want to freeze in one place? Never changing? Never leaving?"

"Yeah, you know, in those times when everything is just... right? Doesn't everybody want to do that at times? Don't you?"

"I never think about it. But you do, a lot." He says this like he's telling himself more than telling me.

"Is that a bad thing?"

"I don't know. But it's impossible, so the fact that you want it so much kind of - kind of scares the shit out of me sometimes."

"Like what? Why?"

He shakes his head. "Never mind... I better go. Call me if you need anything."

It's too late in the morning for James to go out the front door, so I slip some pants on and help him sneak out the deck. A patch of moss is growing on top of the wooden rail, and I run my hand over its dampness. I don't know how it got here.

As he descends the stairs I stop him, telling him to ask me where we go after graduation. He's a couple of steps down and turns to look up at me.

"Where do we go after graduation?"

"We walk into the sunset."

"What do we do there?"

"Wait for the sunrise." I rise up on my tiptoes and smile at him. "How's that?"

He gives my chin a finger-brush. "That's a start."

I return to my room, undress, readying myself to slip back under the covers, but before I do, what he said minutes ago hits me like a slam to my chest knocking the wind out of me. I have to take a step forward to steady myself. The fact that I sometimes want to freeze myself in time scares him because he's afraid I might actually try to do that? Does he mean suicide?

I grab for my phone and text him fast: _Never. I would never do that._

Waiting for the chime, I shake my phone as if that will make him reply faster. I pace in front of my desk.

Finally it comes:_ I know, V. Smile again for me and then get some sleep._

I do smile, and I even send him a smiley face text to show him.

My sheets still smell of James and it's easy to fall asleep. And while I find it easy to sleep in his smell, it won't be easy to stop loving him, the way I made it seem. Yet I have to. I have to start getting used to the idea of not just sharing him, but letting him go.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

Too much knocking and Esme's muffled voice shouting my name.

I'm warm and Isabella's next to me. Her head is against my shoulder, and moving away from her or waking her is too depressing.

"There's a bike at the bottom of the swimming pool!"

That gets me moving. I carefully lift Isabella's head and slip out of bed. After I pull on sweatpants and a sweatshirt, force my feet into shoes, I meet Esme by the pool.

I hardly remember a morning generous enough to give the full unfiltered rays of the sun. There's no reason to expect, or even wish, for something different on the morning I have to jump into an ice cold pool to retrieve a bicycle.

Esme is on the opposite side of the pool, and as I walk around to her, I check for last night's keg. Whichever group brought it must've taken it with them when they left.

"The disarray of the house is bad enough. Your father was_ livid_ when we opened the door this morning. You're lucky, I'll tell you, that all he had time for was a shower before his first surgery. There were kids _sleeping_ in the living room. Jane is taking care of the house, but what's your father going to say to this?" She aims an open palm toward the pool.

"Nothing if he doesn't find out."

"You're really hurting him, you know? Why don't you just listen to him? Follow his rules? Why is that so hard for you? You get away with a hell of a lot more than most teenagers do. He's at his wit's end. He's really gonna lose it."

My eyes shoot to hers. Is she defending my father to me?

"Let's get something straight." For as angry as I am, my quiet tone surprises me. "You're not, and never will be, my mother. My father doesn't matter to me any more than I matter to him. Got that?"

"I'm sorry about your mother. I really am. But you can't punish me for that. I am your father's wife, now, and you won't talk to me that way."

I'd like to tell her that I can't stand the way she's talking to me, either, and she's lucky that I don't even want to know if there was something going on behind my mother's back while she was alive, but the way her voice shook a little bit while she spoke stops me. "I'm sure we'll get along just fine as long as we never talk about my father. Go on inside, Esme. It's cold out."

"What about the bike?"

"I'll take care of it. My father never has to know."

When she's gone, I give myself false hope. I grab the pool net and dip it into the water backwards, handle side down - try to hook it somehow through the bike or the tire. It keeps slipping off because I can't angle the pole in the right way to lift the bike successfully. The bike keeps getting pushed farther into the deep end.

I go to the pool house to wake Isabella.

Squatting down, I whisper at first, patting her arm. "Isabella."

She groans and rolls over.

"Wake up, okay? Wake up."

Nothing.

"Hey, Izzy-B," I say it a little louder, just trying to get some reaction out of her. I shake her shoulder.

She lets out a short humming grunt sound and swats at the air like I'm a fly that keeps landing on her. I shake her a little bit more, and then bring my fingers to her face. "Bella."

She opens her eyes, blinks a few times, squints. "Why did you call me that?"

"Are you feeling okay? I need your help."

"Tired." Still squinting, she yawns, a hand covering her mouth. "Sleep."

"I need your help outside. Will you help me?"

She nods.

"Grab your jacket and meet me by the pool."

I go into the bathroom, grab a towel, start the shower, and turn the thermostat up. I'm going to be freezing when I'm done with this.

Outside, waiting for Isabella, I stare down at the bike. It's not too far into the deep end. I have to jump in, pull it toward the steps, and push it up so Isabella can help me get it out. If I don't freeze to death first. I don't dare touch the water yet.

"Why is your bike in there?" Isabella is behind me and I'm pumping myself up. I jump up and down a few times, wiggling my hands at my side.

"Oh, I don't know. I like challenges on freezing Sunday mornings."

"Will it be ruined?"

"Don't care. It's not mine. Help me pull it out."

I dive in and there's no possible way to prepare yourself for this kind of cold. I swim as fast as I can toward the bike. I've got to get out.

"Fuck!" I say when I come up, pushing the bike out of the water toward Isabella. "Hurry," I try to say but my voice isn't really working anymore. The bike's out, I'm out, and Isabella is wrapping the towel around me, which really does nothing because all of my clothes are on and they're like ice. I should've brought a blanket. My teeth are chattering and my body's shaking. The wind hits me and I want to murder it.

Over the towel, she's rubbing up and down my arms as we rush to the pool house.

"I think I'm still drunk," she says. "I think I just imagined all of this."

I can't say anything. My teeth are louder than Isabella's voice. I aim straight for the shower, step in with my clothes on and don't remove them until I'm under the heat of the spray.

I exit, towel wrapped around my lower half, and pull on another pair of sweat pants and another sweatshirt, and double up on socks. Isabella's in the kitchen stirring something in a cup with steam coming out of it. She offers it to me; she might as well be offering smack to a junky.

"It's just hot cocoa. I couldn't figure out how to use your fancy coffee maker." She laughs. "Sorry, there are just too many buttons and do-dads."

"I don't drink coffee." I snatch the cup even though she's still stirring. She slips the spoon into her mouth, drinking the excess chocolate off of it while I drink from my cup like I'm the Wile E Coyote and finally caught the Road Runner.

"Are you warm yet?"

My phone rings. I look around for it. "How are_ you_ calling me?"

She holds up her hands. "It isn't me."

I find my phone in last night's pocket. It's Alice. I ask her if she saw anyone throw a bike in my pool. All she does is laugh. When I ask her about a French guy, she starts speaking nonsense French: "_Oui, oui, non, non, monsieur Cullen. Comment allez avec moi?_"

When I get off the phone with Alice I turn to Isabella.

"Alice has your phone."

"How did you know the call was coming from my phone before you…" She cuts herself off, looking at me like I'm a brand new puppy. "You have an Isabella ringtone?"

I shrug, a little embarrassed that she knows this. "You know, there are a lot of people I really don't want to talk to." And then I change the subject. "Do you know who was giving out E last night?"

"A bunch of people were passing pills around in the kitchen. I don't know who gave Victoria one. I could tell she didn't know what it was and I tried to take it from her, but she pushed me down."

"She pushed you down?"

"I wasn't exactly well balanced." She drinks her hot chocolate, and doesn't seem as bothered as I am about her being pushed. "I think she thought I was going to take it, like, actually take it, swallow it."

"She pushed you over that?"

"I don't know what I did to make her hate me so much."

"It's not you," I tell her. It's me. It's James.

Sitting down on the stool, I take another gulp of my drink. It's already cooling. She's standing on the opposite side of the counter.

"Last night, you told me you used to be Bella."

"Bella?" She looks nervous. I saw this look before, that day I saw her reading under the bridge - this same look. "That's not me anymore."

"Are you going to explain what that means?"

"No."

"You changed your name?"

"Just to my given name."

"Why does the name matter?"

"It doesn't. It's drunken nonsense."

"Come on. I told you about the article. You can tell me this, can't you?"

"Hmm… fast one, Cullen. Not fair." She takes a drink; she pauses; she procrastinates. I wait.

"When I found out we were moving, my friends bought me these bracelets-" she holds up her arm to show me "-that I'd never buy for myself, and they knew it. They told me I was lucky, moving to a place where nobody knew me. Said I could be anybody. I guess I liked that idea. I just wanted to grow up."

"So you're somebody else now?"

"Back there I was this bookish girl. Quiet, except around my closest friends. I didn't want to be that anymore. I mean, I'm going to be a senior at a new school, in a new state with no friends. I wanted to have friends. I've kind of messed it up because I hid too much of myself in the beginning. The person these people all love, she's not the whole me. They don't know the most important parts of me. And I don't think I want them to."

"They don't know those parts of you, but I do?"

"_God_, how much did I tell you last night? What else did I say?"

"You said enough to confuse the hell out of me, which isn't hard since you're already confusing enough even without a bottle of tequila in you."

"Don't talk about tequila, please." She ducks her head and lets out a groan. "But, yeah, you've seen the side of me that loves books, that has photography goals." Her laugh is more like a scoff. "The part of me that has a brain. It turns out I didn't grow up at all; I went backwards. True, I have more friends than I've ever had before, but it's fake. It's not real."

"But you _are_ Bella?"

"I guess I am."

"They get Isabella, but I get Bella?" I can't help but grin at her.

She nods. I finish off my drink, liking what I'm hearing. I have an inclination to ask her about James. I ask her something else instead.

"Can I call you Bella?"

"Sure, if you want. Go ahead. I mean, we slept together, didn't we?"

I raise my eyebrows wondering if she thinks we fucked.

"Relax." She reaches over and roughs up my hair the way I do Max's. "I know it was just sleep. I wasn't_ that_ far gone."

I could tell her that I used to be someone else, too. But I wasn't bookish and quiet. I was someone I wouldn't even tolerate right now.

Ignoring all that, I say the only thing I can think of after acknowledging we didn't have sex together last night. "You want to get pizza?"

She says that pizza has never sounded better, but that she has to at least finger-brush her teeth first. I shadow her into the bathroom, open a drawer and pull out a new toothbrush.

"Jane keeps them stocked for guests."

She cocks an eyebrow at me.

"When this pool house was used for guests."

"Is Jane your step-mom?"

I look at her sideways, and my answer is slow. "House - keeper."

.

I guess it shouldn't surprise me to find that Isabella eats pizza unconventionally. We order a combination, and first she picks off the little pieces of meat or vegetables and feeds them to herself one at a time. Except for the mushrooms, which she casts aside on her plate. Once all that's left is sauce, and whatever cheese didn't come off with her pickings, she eats the slice crust first.

"I like the crust the best," she says, covering her mouth in an attempt to hide that she's speaking with a mouthful of pizza crust. "I've eaten it like this since I was a kid. And I drank about a gallon of everything last night, so I deserve to eat in peace."

I lean back in the booth, my hands clasping behind my head, elbows pointing out. "I didn't say a thing."

"It's all in your eyes. The truest truths are always the unspoken ones." She looks up at the ceiling like she's thinking about something. "I feel like I've heard that before. I can't remember where. Besides, eating pizza backwards is an aphrodisiac. You should try it sometime."

I take that theory on and test it out. Except for that one fatal flaw. The flaw doesn't occur to me until about halfway through eating the slice backwards, and through our laughter, when I _am_ feeling turned on. It isn't from the pizza. You can't test properly for an aphrodisiac when you're sitting across from one.

"You know what you're doing, don't you?"

"What?" And it's the way she says it, rounded eyes, raised eyebrows, and a slight parted mouth. She isn't purposely teasing me - this is just her. Bella.

And I flat out want her.

It's here, sitting in this checkered, torn-and-taped vinyl booth at Woody's Pizzeria along the Forks harbor that I decide I'm going to fight for Isabella. If I'm going up against James, so be it.

Does she know him as well as she knows me?

Does he know she's really Bella?

It's possible the answer to both of these questions is no.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**_ In the Debris_ is up for fic of the week at The Lemonade Stand. There's some heavy competition this go around - a lot of great fics rec'd there. Check them out and vote for your favorites. tehlemonadestand. blogspot. com

Thank you for reading, and welcome new readers! :)


	9. Cinders

Thank you for the reviews and support, everyone!

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Cinders**

**Victoria**

Beetles trampling over my window, up and down and diagonal and sideways and all ways wake me up. As my eyes open, the beetles morph into raindrops that go splat and then drizzle zig-zags down the glass. It's after two; I throw my covers off, pull some leggings on, and wander downstairs for food.

My aunt's releasing the cord from the vacuum and about to plug it into the wall when she spots me.

"Look who decided to join the living. You have chores to do, young lady."

"I'll do them." I'm yawning when I say it.

"Sit with me first. We need to talk."

She takes a seat on the sofa while I take the chair, my legs tucked under me. Sweeping my hair over one shoulder, I twist it all the way to the ends, trying to tame it; it must be a frizzed-out mess right now.

Her hands fold, unfold, and smooth her skirt over her knees. "James spent the night last night?"

I release my hair and it unravels. "You heard him?"

"Are you two being safe?"

"We don't. We aren't like that."

She purses and contorts her mouth, even her nose kind of tilts. "I wasn't born yesterday. You spend all your time with him, and last night, you know, this house isn't that big, and you weren't exactly quiet."

I hide my face in my hands. "Auntie! I swear. Nothing happened. That was just me - _joking_ around. I was kidding!"

She makes more strange faces like she's trying to decide whether or not to believe me.

"I swear! But did M-Uncle Phil hear?"

"You're lucky he sleeps like a log. Or, correction, _James_ is lucky."

As I start to get up, she stops me with a firm hand on my knee. _What next?_ I wonder.

"When you do, when you are ready, I hope you come to me first. But if you can't do that, at least be safe. Can you remember to be safe? I want a promise right now. Maybe it's time to get you on the pill."

"I promise. But I don't see it happening anytime soon."

Her smile is too wide when she hears this. She grasps my fingers and shakes my arm. "Good girl. You're a good, good girl."

I wonder if she would still think I'm good if she knew what really went on last night, or if she would think sex with James is actually a better option than flipping out on drugs. For a second I contemplate telling her. I want to tell her. I want to so badly that my mouth opens to form the words. Instead I tell her something as close to the truth as I can, and I suppose I'm telling myself at the same time. "I'm not going to end up like her. I won't run away, get pregnant and get myself hooked on drugs."

"No, you're going to end up the world's greatest poet, and I'll be the first in line to buy your book."

Her blind support brings the feeling of tears right to my chest. It's like a tickle that ends up making me laugh rather than cry. I decide to write a poem later about how people let themselves go blind on purpose, and then pretend they have no idea. They're convinced they can see everything there is to see, while blocking the most genuine visions from themselves.

Mud clumps down the stairs, coming over to bend down and give Aunt Cheri a kiss on the lips. I catch the back of his graying hair as he tilts his head to the right angle before I avert my eyes. They used to do that a lot - kiss on the lips several times a day, even out in public. They probably still do it, but I'm not around to see it like I used to be.

"You slept later than even I did this morning, Little One," he says. "You might be cut out for nightshifts at the lodge."

I never remind him that I'm not little anymore. I stopped that a few years ago, and the nickname is too imbedded in his brain. I don't look at him, either, because I don't want to know if he's looking back at me in that intense way. In his voice, I can almost hear a wink in his eye.

Aunt Cheri hits at his arm. "I just got through telling her what a poet she'll be and you come in here and muss it up with lodge business."

"It's honest work, the lodge."

"Don't you listen to him." She pats my knee. "If you work at the lodge, it'll be so you can write your poems in between showing guests to their rooms."

Mud gives her a kiss goodbye. "See ya, girls. I'm off to my - well, apparent - nightmare of a job."

As I dust the living room, still dressed in my night clothes, my aunt's earlier questions of James and me bubble through my mind, bursting into new thoughts. Unlike me, James is no virgin. And I know just about when and where he lost his virginity - at his cousin's apartment.

.

No lampposts light the alleyway leading to Marcus' Port Angeles apartment. And the alley isn't wide enough for a car so, guided by nothing but moonlight, we walk down the street, through small puddles of old or new rainwater spotted with rainbows of oil, and up the cement steps into his apartment.

It seemed the moonlight that lit our path followed us into the apartment, as everyone was warm and glowing with smiles. I was free to be me there and could have fun without being judged by anyone.

Marcus has furniture now, but when James and I first started hanging out there on Saturday nights, back when I was still fifteen and James was barely sixteen, all Marcus had to offer as seating were crates.

Marcus was just eighteen and living with a roommate for the first time. In my mind they lived the life of a never-ending party, probably because that was all that went on whenever I was there. Though they were really more like gatherings than parties. They were nothing like Edward's party.

At almost every Marcus-gathering, a couple of guys would start wrestling in the middle of the room. Sometimes Marcus would try to wrestle James, but he had no chance. He was so small compared to James. James, two years younger, could pin him in less than twenty seconds.

Everyone either cheered or heckled.

This girl, Tanya, with long straight hair down to her waist was always slipping her arm through mine and leaning to rest the sides of our heads together as she told me things about life as if they were big secrets. But really they were mostly regular things like where she went for lunch or some band she just saw live.

When she sucked on the cigar being passed around, I knew it was no ordinary cigar. She blew the smoke out, leaned her head to mine and whispered, "It's a blunt. Want?"

"I don't know."

"There's only a fifty-fifty chance you'll get brain damage." She laughed, turning her forehead on mine until we were face to face, heads together. "No, really, nothing'll happen. Everything will just seem funnier, and maybe clearer. You'll understand what the Earth wants you to know."

It was all a whisper, a secret, and it didn't really make sense to me, which made me wonder if blunts actually made things less clear rather than more clear. I went up to James, seated on a crate where a dining table would later stand, and asked him if he was going to smoke it.

"Are you?" he asked.

"No. I kind of want to, though. With Tanya."

He stood, bringing his eyes down level with mine and said, "How 'bout this? The first time we smoke it, we'll do it together."

I agreed.

"But not tonight."

"Not tonight."

Over the next week we gave our decision room to settle into our heads, as if sinking down into a comfy couch, and we lit up for the first time the following Saturday.

Tanya was right, it did make everything funny, and maybe I didn't understand the Earth any better, but I understood everyone around me.

And it was like everything that was anything was happening right now. Like all that mattered in the world, we were experiencing in that moment. Maybe that's what Tanya meant about understanding the Earth. We were living in the present with nothing behind us and nothing ahead of us. And it was the present, the now, that we understood entirely. All the answers manifested themselves as if riding the tide from the back of our minds to the front, like they were always there. Effortless.

Ideas and thoughts entered us on an inhale and exited our mouths on an exhale, joining the world like smoke fills a room. Everyone spoke at once and understood what everyone else meant. It was a confusion of no confusion at all.

With lidded eyes and ever-present lazy smiles, James and I leaned against the wall, sitting on crates that we pushed together like a couch, our heads falling to the side as if they were too heavy for our necks as we discussed the most important nonsense ever heard. He swore that the biggest problem regarding Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy was not that they were different species, but that they were originally voiced by the same person.

"That's like being in love with yourself." He tried to put effort into his smile but only one side lifted a bit more than the other.

"No way! The different species thing is way worse. Most people are in love with themselves anyway."

This time his smile grew complete all on its own, revealing his dimple. "You win."

"Of course."

After a few months, and after James started selling, he and I would go our own separate ways at those parties. I didn't yet know the reason James would disappear for so long and return looking at peace and satisfied. I thought it was just the high. It wasn't until later when I put it together that he was actually having sex.

When it first started happening, I was too preoccupied with Marcus' roommate Riley to notice.

We would make out on the fire escape or in a secluded corner of the apartment, sometimes ending up in his bedroom.

On his bed. Lips on my throat. Hands up my shirt. I pushed them away. They came back. I pushed them away. They came back. I let them stay.

For a little while Riley would drive up to Forks to take me out to the movies, and we'd make out in the theater, too. It's funny how eventually it just stopped. We never broke up or anything because nothing was ever official between us. We just stopped. It's weird the way these things come about and then end just like that, fizzling out like a doused fire.

After that day in James' kitchen when I thought he might kiss me but didn't, I no longer wanted to go with him to his cousin's parties, not if he was going to go off in a room with some other girl. And on the couple of days a month when he picked up his product, he'd never take me with him, even if I had wanted to go - which I didn't.

One weekend when he was trying to talk me into going to Marcus' and I was refusing, he was really pushing for me to tell him why. It wasn't like I was going to come right out and say, "Because you're going to sleep with someone who isn't me," so I couldn't give him a reason. I could only say that I was over it all.

"I won't go, either."

"If you want to go, go," I said. "Don't stay home because of me."

"No. I'm over it all." He leaned back on his bed, folded his arms and grinned, looking at me from the corners of his eyes.

I felt the butterflies, the ones that tingled.

.

I finish the downstairs and have to move on, cleaning the upstairs bathroom - my bathroom. As I'm wiping the shower down, I remember what happened in it last night, and my mind wanders to Isabella, and how she tried to stop me from taking that pill, and then how I pushed her down.

"I owe her an apology." I say this aloud to my tired-eyed reflection. I swipe beneath my eyes, fix my hair, adding a little water to tame the frizz into more of a curl, and apply some make up to my face.

After getting her phone number from Edward, I give her a call, telling her I need to talk to her, and she invites me over. Aunt Cheri lets me take her car, but with the handing over of her keys, she includes a warning. "Be careful. That rain's coming down harder now, and it freezes to ice fast on days as cold as this." She points to her cheek and I give her a kiss.

It's starting to get darker earlier. Deep clouds bruise the sky, their rains bleeding down over Forks.

It's warm in temperature and sound at Isabella's house, a fire going in the living room, bustled kitchen noises coming from my right. A timer goes off and then it sounds like a pot is dropped on the floor. A man's laughter follows.

"My dad," she says, when I look toward the clamoring. "He has wrestling matches when he cooks. It's a good thing he's not the only EMT in this town, because my mom and I are sure he'll need an ambulance called one day."

She's smiling when I apologize to her. She doesn't accept my apology, or say she forgives me, she just acts like nothing ever happened.

"Should we go paint our nails now?"

I give her an eyebrow raise. "Look at your nails. When was the last time you painted them?"

I show her her hand, each nail maybe one-third covered in blue polish. She makes tongue clicking noises as she thinks. "Let's see, um… Alice painted them last so I guess it would be about… two, yeah, two weeks now. So embarrassing."

"Embarrassing? You probably didn't even notice your nails until I pointed them out."

While she laughs her agreement, her dad comes in, wiping his hands off on his half-apron.

"Hey, Izzy-B, who's this?"

"Victoria Mayes."

Like Isabella, her dad has deep brown eyes and a natural smile as he talks that matches his laughter. His eyebrows are almost as thick as his mustache. "Well, Victoria, it's nice to meet you." He shakes my hand. And then he gives me a head-tilt. "Mayes? Is your mother's name Char? Charlotte?"

"You know her?"

"You're almost her spittin' image. Wow, I haven't seen her in… years. Over a decade. Before you were born, Iz. I had no idea she was back in town. How's she doing?"

"Okay, Dad, stop monopolizing my new friend and get crackin' on dinner before mom cracks your skull." She pushes her dad into the kitchen before leading me to her room, which reminds me of what the inside of a genie bottle would look like. One wall of drapes gives the illusion of a wall you could walk through into another universe - burgundy material hanging floor to ceiling over the window, and next to the window a matching curtain covers her closet in place of a door. The rest of her room is filled with purples and coppery oranges that separately don't seem like they would go together, but put together look as though they belong. I'm about to ask her if she can grant wishes.

When I finish scoping the room, Isabella and I stare at each other a little too long.

James interrupts our strange silence with a text asking how I'm doing. I answer that I'm fine and at Isabella's house. I don't hear back from him.

Isabella tells me about some music she just downloaded. The mix of rock and punk pulsing the room sets us more at ease. It's music James would love - maybe they are suited for each other.

We sit on her bed together. I tap my knee. Other than Tanya, who never really grew into anything more than an occasional friend, I haven't had a real girl friend since sixth grade and I don't know what to do or say. Isabella seems just as uneasy.

"You're different than you come off at first," I tell her.

"That's a relief," she says and perches on a leg at the edge of her bed.

"You know about my mom? That's why you cut your dad off?"

"Just rumors. I don't know if - I don't know what's real."

"You used to live here, though, when he knew my mom?"

"My parents did. My mom got pregnant with me before they were married. They had a shotgun wedding and moved to Florida. Never came back until now."

I think about people and years and dates. I wonder if her dad ever dated my mom, and then for a moment, I let myself dream…

"When's your birthday?"

"I turned eighteen September thirteenth."

She's a month older than me. It's impossible unless her dad cheated on her mom while she was pregnant, which is highly doubtful. I find myself mourning for a father I only, for three seconds, hoped was mine. It might not seem such a thing is possible, but it is. Even stranger things are possible when you have no idea who your dad is. Sometimes I'm convinced he's the guy in front of me at the grocery store, or next to me at the red light.

We spend the rest of the afternoon getting to know each other - nothing too deep or personal, just regular stuff. She changes the music several times. The sounds are so different each time, it's almost like she changes it with the mood, or for the mood.

She shows me some pictures she's taken and asks if she can take pictures of me sometime. She likes my hair and wants to get me near the trees before all the leaves are gone.

"There's a tree down the street with leaves that match your hair right now. But not for long."

This reminds me of when my mom used to tell me I looked like autumn. But autumn is temporary. I'm not.

"Isn't there anything more permanent than dying leaves that match?"

She narrows her eyes a little. "It's not that, not that they're dying. They're beautiful. But there is something else. Two things actually, that happen every day."

"What?"

She smiles at me. "The sunset and the sunrise."

.

Before dawn the next morning, out on the deck near my room, I pull the hood of my coat up and wait for the color in the sunrise that matches my hair. My mind drifts to James and Isabella. The thought of losing James to any girl makes my stomach queasy. I've felt for so long that he's my guy, even before I knew my feelings were love. But if he doesn't love me, losing him is inevitable.

He's never had a serious girlfriend, but he will eventually.

I remember what he told me in his car the other day, how he had to force himself to stop hoping for more between us. Maybe that was why he started messing around with other girls, and sleeping with them. Maybe if I sleep with someone it'll be easier to let James go.

Edward is the first one who crosses my mind. He's already kissed me. If I ask him, maybe he'll do it and treat me right. But the problems with him are he's also too hung up on Isabella, and I don't want to lose him as a friend. So then, who?

The thing about rumors is that sometimes they're true, or there's truth in them - like James and his selling, his hood-up thing, and like Jasper and his _sexpeditions_.

Jasper is the only person I can think of who won't laugh at me or turn me down, and who's been around enough to know what it's like with a virgin.

Maybe he doesn't like me, but he doesn't necessarily _dis_like me, either. He was never one of the taunters. But will he treat me right? Well, that will be the stipulation. He'll have to make promises or he won't get any.

Someone opens the door behind me and I hear Mud's voice.

"You're up early. Can't sleep?"

"Guess not."

"It's cold. You should tuck yourself back in bed."

I shiver, stepping around him, careful not to touch him.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

When my dad gets home tonight, he's in the kind of rage that makes his face look like his tie is tied too tight. He's about to explode.

I wasn't expecting him. Why would I be? I'm in the main house with Max, having a dinner that Jane cooked, and I don't know or care where Esme is.

Our dad's voice bellows at me before I see him, and he stalks red-faced into the kitchen. I hear things like: "What were you thinking?" and "What if someone had been in an accident?" and "We could be sued!" and "We could lose everything!"

I stand, fast, my back to the table.

"Aside from my wine, my entire bar was cleared out of liquor. All underage kids! I thought we had an understanding last June. I thought you were through with partying!"

"There's no understanding. I stopped partying for Mom, not for you!"

"Then it's your mother you've let down?"

My heart stops for a second; it's like I've been gutted by words. It makes me bend over.

I walk away from him, and go for a run.

I'm alone, abandoned by a father I never really had to begin with. I tell myself that the reason my eyes are watering up is because of the wind hitting my face. I squash everything under my feet as I run: my mother and the thought of letting her down, my father and his explosion, Max witnessing it all.

Max is at the pool house when I get back, and he's also angry, only, I mistake who his anger is directed at.

"I know. He's an ass, sorry."

Max follows me inside.

"Why do you hate our family so much?" His arms are folded in front of his chest, and then he drops them, then folds them again.

"What? No. It's just Dad."

"Not just Dad. Esme, too!" This actually shocks me. When he talked about family, Esme hadn't even entered my mind. "And you're always making Dad mad. You've been yelling at each other ever since Mom, since Mom…"

I turn around, walk toward the kitchen, walk back. I feel like running all over again. My hands are clasped behind my neck.

"You're sticking up for Dad, here? And, okay, okay. So, you like Esme?" I rub my face because I'm really not getting this.

"She's cool to me."

"When?" Before I can help it, I sort of laugh a little. His glare makes me stop.

"You think you're perfect. You moved out of the house. You have parties you don't even let me go to. And when you're gone, off with Isabella or whoever, what am I supposed to do around here by myself? Josh's parents don't like to drive all the way out here, so sometimes Esme picks him up or she takes me there. And when there's nothing to do and no one else is around, Esme hangs out with me. We play the 360. She's good at _To the Death_. Did you know that?"

"No."

"You can hate her if you want, but I don't."

I move over to the couch and fall into it, my head in my hand, my elbow on my knee. "I don't hate her, I just don't like her. But that's my - those are my issues. If you like her and she's nice to you, that's…" I look at him. "That's really great, Max. But don't talk to me about Dad. Really. Don't start sticking up for Dad." This thought makes me so angry right now, I'm almost shaking. I couldn't stand Max taking our father's side over mine - not when half my problems with our father have to do with how he treats Max. I feel like having a smoke or something. Maybe I should take up the habit. It's hard to sit still.

He sits down on the table in front of me.

"Okay, Max, look. I can't live in that house. I can't. But-"

"I can."

I rub my forehead. The kid is stronger than me. "I'm here, okay? Right here. And maybe not all the time, but I try. And I try to bring you with me wherever I go when I can, but we're different ages, you know? I'm leveling with you here. You're old enough to level with. Some of the stuff I deal with, and what goes on at the parties, I don't want you to see. It isn't good for you, and Mom wouldn't want it either."

I close my eyes wishing she was here. Everything would be so much better if she was just here. I remember when I was thirteen, I was already getting into trouble. Max is such a good kid.

_Be a role model for your brother_, my mother told me, and I can scoff at that because the truth is, he's probably a role model for _me_. He keeps me straighter than I keep myself.

"Do you do drugs?"

My hand reaches for my neck. Man, it hurts. My whole back hurts. My voice is quiet. "Why would you ask that?"

"Something Dad said to Esme."

"He shouldn't be saying that shit in front of you. What is his problem? And no. I'm not doing drugs. I'm not. I don't even drink." I realize, considering the shots of tequila I had last night, that's a lie. But my intention is not to drink, so maybe that lie is okay. A white lie. Although my intention was also not to party, and I lost that fight too. I can't let the lie go, especially after just telling him he's old enough to level with. "I mean, I usually don't drink. I don't anymore."

His eyes seem stuck on the wall behind me, giving me no reaction whatsoever.

"You want to go somewhere?"

He continues to ignore me; I try again.

"How about some basketball?"

He turns away from me.

I make him get up so I can lift the tabletop from the table he's been sitting on. It's piled to the top with outdoor game equipment like frisbees and badminton. I pull out a basketball. Max has a better one in his room, but I'm not going to help myself to that one right now. Without another word to Max, I head out to our half-court over on the other side of the pool, thinking he'll follow me - hoping for it. It's dark so I flick the lights on. They shine brighter than streetlights down on the court. I bounce the ball around, take a few shots, miss them all.

"You suck."

I smile when I hear him behind me, but purposely lose the smile before I face him. "One-on-one?"

"With you? No competition."

I chuck the ball at him, hard. "I missed on purpose, knew you were there."

"Yeah, right." He smiles sideways at me and I know I'm getting somewhere with him.

Every ball he shoots that gets anywhere near the basket goes in. My only chance against Max is to block his shots, and only because I'm still taller. Not for long, though. I'm sure he'll be taller than me in a few years, maybe even taller than Jasper.

"Never whine about soccer again," I tell him when I'm hunched over, a hand on my knee, the ball under my other arm. He hits the ball away from me and scores another basket. _Swish._

.

My father's punishment for me is that for five days there's no money left on the counter. On the sixth day, more cash than ever before is sitting there, like he's making up for it. This is the only way he knows how to be a father. This is being a parent. This is where parenting starts and ends with him.

I take the money. I take the only thing my dad will ever offer as a parent. I give Max a big chunk of it, too.

"Cool!" he says, and the look on his face, his wide-eyed gladness makes me both happy and depressed at the same time. He didn't even look that happy when he beat the shit out of me at basketball. It takes money to get this look on his face. That's what our father taught me, that's what he's teaching Max, and now, I'm reinforcing it. Our father is our money, our life support through hundred dollar bills. That's all there is in this huge house on the hill.

I'm pissed at my dad and I'm pissed at myself, so I want to see Isabella. I grab a book for her in case I need an excuse, and take off in the Jeep. I wouldn't mind taking off and leaving Cullen Catastrophe for good. Except for Max - I want to do nothing but help him, but I'm failing. I can't deny that. It's become clearer now more than ever.

I say an apology in my head to my mother, which makes me speed faster. Practically every muscle in my body is flexed. This is the strength it takes to hold back feeling.

Isabella's home - her truck's there - and she answers the door. I pull her outside by her arm, not rough or anything, just to let her know I want to talk outside.

I shove my hands into my pockets, I'm not making eye contact, and my speaking voice is low, like I don't have the energy to raise it to a normal level. Probably if I did raise my voice, I'd start yelling. "Will you come with me? To the clearing, the hill? Bring your camera if you want."

She asks me if everything's okay. I don't answer.

I wait for her to leave a note, grab her bag and her keys, and then she follows me to the Jeep.

She tells me to slow down as we're bouncing up the hill, and I listen for a little while, but I'm going off, and not really paying attention to speed if she's not bringing it to my attention.

"I just want to be my age, a kid for one more year. Not a father. I don't know how to be a father!"

"Wait, wait, wait… a father? Am I missing something here?"

"Max."

"Edward, you don't have to be anything to Max but a brother. Slow down."

"God, why was it my mom who died? Why couldn't it have been_ him_?"

She stops offering words or answering my rhetorical questions. I don't stop, though.

"I've been trying so hard with Max, but I think all I'm doing is screwing him up."

When we climb our way to the top of the clearing, I don't even help Isabella this time. And when this occurs to me, I'm more frustrated. I'm not noticing the trees all around or below us, or the sun that's actually out, or anything. I only notice Isabella, and I just want to take her and fucking kiss her.

But I can't.

She's not my girlfriend and I have no idea if she wants anything more from me than friendship, and I can't ask her and have what happened to Victoria happen to me. Especially not now. That would send me over this edge I'm staggering on.

"I wish you smoked."

"Why?" There's a laugh in her question.

"So I could bum one off you."

"If that's what you want, you should've brought Jasper up here."

"Don't fucking bring Jasper into this." I head toward the cliff.

"What, you can joke but I can't? Or do you really wish that I had a smoking habit just so you could borrow one once in a while?"

I hear her but don't and I'm looking out at a view I'm not even seeing. My mind is too messed up. I hardly remember the drive up here. Did I just tell her out loud that I wish she smoked?

"I should've brought an orange or some citrus," she says. "It would help your spirit."

That turns me around. "Why do you always do that? Why do you make up shit like that all the time?"

"I don't make it up."

"Yes. Yes, you do." I'm pointing at her and nodding. "Not everything has a quick fix. There's no such thing as magic."

"Maybe magic would be true if you just believed in it. Maybe it's that simple."

"Nothing is that simple! I fucking wish. That's bullshit, a dreamland. Feeding me peaches isn't going to magically make me pick up the guitar and play, giving me citrus isn't going to calm me down, and keeping that article from me isn't going to magically take away my guilt!"

"If you're going to yell at me, then take me home!"

"Fine."

"Fine!" She starts toward the Jeep. "Why did you even bring me here!"

I really hadn't meant to yell at her. I brought her here to make me feel better and I ended up taking my anger out on her. My hand rakes through my hair, stopping at my neck.

"Hold on," I say with a sigh.

Her spin around is quick, hair whipping around her shoulder, and she takes her turn to go off.

"Don't call what I believe in bullshit! Don't take me up here and lay your issues on me and then act like I'm crazy and live in some dreamland when all I'm trying to do is help. Okay, and maybe I do make these things up. Or maybe I've found some things that actually work for me, whether or not it makes sense why they work. Maybe I've learned that if you just have something to believe in, and you believe in it hard enough or long enough, it comes true! Whether it's really the fruit or the herb or whatever, or whether it's really inside you and you just need that push, I don't know. But if it works, it fucking works!"

She has tears in her eyes, some spilling over, and it makes me take a few steps back. She's almost always smiling. I've never seen her cry before, or even yell, and here I am, causing it all. I start to apologize before thinking of something far more effective than a sole apology when it comes to Isabella.

"If only we had a celery stick right about now." I give her a weak smile, the only one I can conjure up. "I should've thought ahead."

She laughs. She covers her face with one hand, shakes her head and laughs. And I've never seen her look more beautiful.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know you really believed in all that. I thought you were screwing with me."

She sits on the ground as if exhausted, tall green wild grass reaching her chest. She rubs the palm of her hand along the tips of the grass. "I just need to believe in something, you know? A couple summers ago I was on this photography high, and at the same time, my mom had just gone to this fruit market and stocked up on raspberries. She said they were the best ever and bought as many as she could. I ate them like they were the last raspberries on earth. I drizzled them over sponge cake, and added them to my cereal and ice cream, or just ate them straight from the bowl. I was taking pictures for hours a day. I went through more film than I could afford to develop. Ever since then, when I eat raspberries, I feel like taking pictures. So if I'm ever blocked for a theme or subject, I eat raspberries and I get inspired. It's, like, automatic."

"I get it," I say. "I get it."

"Do you?"

"Yeah."

"But you don't get why I took the newspaper clipping from you. That wasn't supposed to be magic."

"What was it, then?"

She stands, and her voice is barely there. I have to move nearer in order to hear her. "I thought if you saw that someone, a friend, was willing to carry your guilt for you… I don't know, I thought if you saw that someone cared that much, it might make you feel better. I have the clipping if you want it back. I definitely didn't take it to make you feel worse." She sticks her hand in her back pocket and pulls it out.

She still has it.

Not only does she still have it, it's on her.

I'm speechless like never before. I start toward her, back away again, move forward. It's like I'm dancing or something. I don't know where to go or what to do. I'm fucking_ floored_.

My mouth drops open. "Isabella." I manage, eventually. "Bella."

She offers it to me. I put a hand out to stop her.

"Keep it. Nobody has ever… I had no clue. You taking the clipping? That was you saying you would take my guilt on you?"

"What did you think it was?"

"That you thought I was crazy and took it from me for sanity reasons. Or like, if you took it from me, it would somehow make me forget my guilt. I don't think like you do. I obviously should. But I don't."

She tucks the folded article back into her pocket. "It might be rare for someone around here, but I actually do care about my friends."

I move the few steps closer to her. I take her cheek and all its softness in my hand, my fingers caressing on their own. My eyes might be wet; I can't be sure.

"Is that what we are? Are we friends?" I'm looking into her eyes and she isn't looking away.

_Tell me you want more._

"You know we are." She smiles, her fingers wrapping my wrist as my hand holds her face. "Who in Forks, seriously, are better suited as friends than we are?"

_Tell her _you_ want more_.

"I-I…" I shake my head because I can't say it. Fear is a fucked up thing. I could sleep with someone, let her go. One night. Easy. But this. Telling this girl, right here that I want more than friendship has me so freaked my jaw is clenching up and the hand at my side is pulling into a fist. My next breath shakes. "I'm sorry I was such a dick." I lean down and kiss her cheek, holding her face against my lips, and smell her flower smell. Kissing her cheek is not exactly what I want, but it's better than no contact at all. "Do you know how fucking awesome you are?" I say this against her skin and I don't want to move. I brush my lips higher on her cheek and kiss again. I could keep kissing her. All day. My eyes close.

She moves, stepping back. My hand no longer has contact with her. At first her eyes are closed, and when she speaks her voice is scratchy. "Even with my magic oddity?"

"Especially with that."

"Yeah, so don't forget it, Cullen. And next time you're upset about anything, I challenge you to smell real citrus. Bring it up to your nose and take a good long sniff, and tell me that doesn't do something to your senses that settles you even a little bit."

"I'll try it."

Mostly just so I can feel her again, I take her hand as we walk down the hill to the Jeep.

On our way back to her house, we pass through town, and she points at the log-cabin market. Without asking why, I pull into the parking lot. She tells me to wait for her, and I joke-ask her if she wants me to keep the engine running for a quick getaway. She comes back holding a small paper bag and says, "Your house."

In the pool house she opens and closes cupboards and the refrigerator a few times. "This'll have to do." She plops a box of pancake mix on the counter, starts mixing in a bowl I grab from a cabinet, and then reaches into her secret bag. Pulling out an orange, she smells it before holding it up to my face, telling me to close my eyes. "Smell," she says. "Take a deep, long, hard smell."

I smell it, despite what the three words she just strung together do to my stomach - and my crotch. My pants feel a little tighter and I find myself taking an automatic step closer to her.

"Now, open your eyes and tell me what happened."

"You're right. When I smelled it something was different, or clearer. It's not a huge change, it's just…"

"Subtle," she says. "Just subtle enough."

She asks me for a cheese grater and starts grating some orange rind into her pancake batter.

"Where did you learn all this?" I'm leaning against the counter, watching her.

"My mom."

I have no idea what's going on in the main house for dinner, unsure if Esme or my father are even home, but I'm not going over to find out. At the same time, I don't want Max to be all alone so I call to invite him over for pancakes. I'm sure he sprints over because he's through the door in minutes, and we gather at the counter eating together. Isabella and Max are sitting next to each other and I'm on the other side, my eyes shifting back and forth between them.

Isabella shoves an orange slice in her mouth and gives Max an orange rind smile. She pulls it out. "Some days, in Florida, all we'd eat was fruit because it was so hot my mom and dad didn't even want to turn on the oven or the stove. Lots of salads, too."

"You should've just hired someone to cook for you," Max says.

"Why didn't we think of that?"

"Isabella, if I admit that oranges help, you have to admit something."

"What?"

"The celery thing?"

"Yeah, I made that up."

"Peaches?"

"I gave that one to you. Do what you want with it."

This answer doesn't tell me whether she believes the peach thing or not. Maybe she does. Or maybe it's like what she said earlier, if you believe in something enough it makes it true.

"And eating pizza backwards?"

I can see she's trying not to smile. "I wanted to see if you would try it."

I wonder how I'm supposed to keep straight which ones she makes up and which ones she believes in, because at first they all seem a little out there to me. Not that I'll ever say that to her.

"What about pizza?" Max asks.

"When you're old enough to take a girl out, eat your pizza backwards," Isabella tells him. "It's cute."

"No, man. Don't listen to her. It's cute when a girl does it, not when a guy does."

She looks at me, sitting up straight. "I thought it was cute when you did it."

"Okay, Max. Forget what I said. I don't know anything."

We're all smiling, and I'll give a little something to Isabella and say that the oranges may really have something to do with it, but mostly, it's just her. And for Max, it's her pancake dinner.

After we eat, Isabella starts doing the dishes and I can't do anything to stop her. I try.

"You don't have to do that. Jane does that."

"I have to do this at home. My parents make me. And it's weird having some stranger clean up after me."

"But that's her job. She gets paid to do it."

"I don't pay her."

She doesn't stop soaping, scrubbing, rinsing, so I go over and help her. I mean, I can't just watch her. Max laughs at us. I flick soap-foam at him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Okay, lovelies. Thanks for reading! I think kind of a lot happened here.

Also, just a note to say that I'm having visitors this weekend and won't be able to write as much. There might be a chapter delay next week.


	10. Ashes

****Hi! I'm back on time.

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Ashes**

**Edward**

It's just Max and me on Thursday night, wind howling outside, rattling the windows. With the house empty, I have him come to the pool house after dinner, put a game on and tell him to show me what he's been practicing with Esme.

"Show me what you got," I say.

After a few rounds, he gives up on kicking my ass with his erratic button-pushing, and lets his controller fall. His onscreen man goes down.

"Teach me how to be cool like you." He leans back against the couch, his legs flat in front of him. I mimic his position.

"You're already cool."

"None of the kids at school think so. How did you get everyone to think you're cool?"

I search for something to say, not ever knowing how to deal with questions like this.

I shrug a shoulder. "Just think of yourself as Superman."

"I'm not ten, bro."

I laugh. "Okay, see? You're cool enough to call me out on my own bullshit. You're cool as fuck, kid." I reach over and shake his shoulder a little.

His eyes widened when I said 'fuck.' I'm never careful about my language, but it's possible I've never actually said fuck directly to him before.

"Say it. Say 'I'm cool as_ fuck_.'"

"I'm cool as_ fuck_." He smiles the smile I know so well. I've done something right. So far.

"You're as cool as Jim Stark. Let's watch the movie. I'll show you how cool you are."

I put on Rebel Without a Cause, a known favorite of our mother's, neither of us strangers to it. We've probably seen it a dozen times with our mother, but this is the first time we'll watch it without her.

"You're Stark. I'm Plato," I say.

"No, you're Stark."

"Nah."

We watch the movie, both of us on the floor, backs against the couch. And this is how, quietly but together, we share in our grief of our mother. We don't have to talk about it. We both know the other misses her like nothing else. We know her favorite scenes and look over at each other at the same time. I check his face to see if he's okay, and he seems to be. No tears. I won't shed any either. Not on the outside. And maybe that's what he's doing, too. Keeping it in.

"You're cooler than you think, bro," I say. "You're tough."

Toward the end of the movie, Max says something that makes me question whether he's actually been watching any of the film at all, or just thinking the whole damn time.

"She was pretty, wasn't she?"

"She was."

"I liked her long hair."

"Me, too."

"I miss touching it."

"Me, too."

"Isabella has hair like hers."

I take a breath and have to turn my head for a second. "Yeah, she does."

"And Mom's eyes were green. We got Dad's eyes."

"Yep."

"It's okay that you didn't let me in the bathroom. I understand now."

If I was keeping it together before, this is what does me in. My jaw clenches, my nostrils flare, and every other part of my body is struggling to keep the tears jailed in my eyes. I look at Max and see the same thing in him. The tears in his eyes shake, and I want nothing bad to happen to him ever again. Not ever.

I put an arm around his shoulders and give him a few tugs toward me. But I can't look at him any longer. My voice is tight, like there's not enough oxygen. "You're so fucking cool, Max. I wish you could see it."

And that's all that's said about our mother. He ends the conversation, me following his lead. Our eyes focus on the screen in front of us, our brains unfocused.

.

While Max is at soccer practice on Friday, I ring Isabella's doorbell after finishing Mrs. Makenna's mowing.

Isabella leads me to her room to grab a book for me. I've never been in here before. The first thing I'm struck with is how much her room smells like her. It's that same flower smell that's in her hair and I'm overwhelmed by it. My pants have less room in them just because of a smell. I have to say something to distract myself.

"Is there any color in existence you don't have in this room?"

She laughs.

"Actually, I think you missed chartreuse."

"Do you even know what color chartreuse is?"

"No."

She launches a pillow at me. "That's it. Chartreuse is accounted for."

There's a bookshelf on the wall above her desk, but that's not where she gets the book she's picked for me. She pushes the drape aside that hangs in front of her closet and shoves her clothes back as far as she can. Over her shoulder I see floor to ceiling shelves, and I can tell, even with her clothes in the way, that every shelf is lined with books. She has about four pairs of shoes on the floor, some belts hanging on the door, a long necklace and a bag, but there are more books in there than anything else.

"You have a library in your closet."

"My dad built it for me." She fingers a book out from between the stacks. I try to remember if my father ever built anything for me. A sort of empire, I suppose might count. She hands me a book; it looks old, torn cover, yellowed pages. I flip through it, over four hundred pages, then look at the title:_ Women in Love_.

I give her a look like she's punishing me. "Revenge because I made you read _Naked Lunch_?"

"It's Lawrence. Believe me, don't judge this book by its title. This is a guy's book, if nothing else."

I have a hard time believing that, but I shove it in my jacket pocket anyway. It hangs out the opening.

Sitting on the end of her bed, she motions for me to join her. When I'm beside her, she falls onto her back, and tugs on my elbow to have me lie back also. I'm facing her; she's facing straight up.

She points to the ceiling. "Look."

"What is that?" There's a circle up there that is obviously a darker color than the rest of the ceiling.

"I'm trying to figure it out. A person can fit through there. I think someone cut it out and then did a bad patch up job." She turns on her side, propping herself up on her arm. "Do you know who lived in this house before us?"

I shake my head.

"I think someone was trapped in here. You know, in a bad way. And they cut their way out. The quick patch up job was done so no one would ever find out." Her smile looks mischievous. "But I did."

"What would the person have cut the opening with if they were trapped?"

"Something ridiculous, like one of those metal nail files, or the tips of a pair of scissors."

"That's time consuming," I laugh. "Why wouldn't they just break the window?"

"Because the room was emptied out, no furniture. And the window is double paned, too strong for anyone's fist."

I turn toward her. "So, someone was trapped in this room with nothing in it but a nail file or a pair of scissors?"

"Yeah, it's like, whoever the captor was, was giving some sort of test or challenge. It was probably some survival training or gang initiation."

"That makes sense, because of all the gangs running around Forks. Fuck, that would be some sort of death wish. Imagine going up against another gang and having to announce yourselves as the Forks Gang. That's threatening."

"That wouldn't be the name. I don't think the word 'gang' would be in a gang name. It would have to be something like The Forks' Tines, or The Pitch Forks, and they'd actually fight with pitchforks instead of knives."

"And the way they initiate themselves is by sawing their way through a ceiling with a nail file. I might join this gang."

She's laughing, and the way she's doing it reminds me of my mother when she used to laugh, when she was really happy. She'd hold her stomach like Isabella's doing now, like it hurt.

"You know what I want to know?" I ask.

She gets control of her laughter, but I can still hear it in her voice when she asks me, "What?"

"Who else has been on this bed."

She laughs again and hits my chest. She thinks I'm joking.

"Okay, okay," she says. "I have a serious question. What would you want most in the world? I mean if you could have anything. It has to be tangible, something you can touch or use. I know this is a hard one for you, because you can buy pretty much anything you want, so dig deep, Edward."

"You go first," I say, but then regret it because it gets her off the bed. She goes to the desk, pulls something out of a drawer, and hands it to me. It looks torn from a catalog. She slinks into her desk chair as I sit up.

It's a camera.

"Really? If you could have anything?"

"Isn't it beautiful? I'd never ask my parents for it. It's way too expensive, but it's my dream camera right now. And I know I'll get it somehow because I place a sprig of dried lavender under my pillow whenever I can."

I narrow my eyes at her and shake my head, but can't stop my smile. "What does that do?"

"It makes your wish come true. You can't wish for too much, though - that's just greed. It has to be a true wish. A wish from your heart."

"I know what I'd want. It's not a specific thing, but it's like that Mickey Mouse snow dome you have. I want a thing that's only purpose is to remind me of a vacation, or something. Some kind of past memory reminder that has no other use. Just that."

"Every time you look at it or pick it up, a new memory from that time comes to mind."

"Exactly that. That's what I want."

"That's a good wish," she says, moving toward the top of her bed and lifting a pillow. She picks up the lavender she really does have under there and pushes it into my jacket pocket, the one without the book in it.

"Put it under your pillow. Just do it. Don't get all freaked out like guys do. Lavender under your pillow won't turn you into a girl." She squeezes my cheeks together and shakes my head for me.

My phone chimes a text, and when I check it, it's Max.

"Fuck, I lost track of time!" I'm off, down the stairs, answering Max's text with one hand as I go, and it isn't until I'm in the car, fumbling to get my keys in the engine that I realize not only did I not say goodbye to Isabella, but I also have her torn catalog page crumpled in my hand.

An excuse to come back tomorrow, I think. And I'm smiling even though I'm feeling like shit for forgetting Max. I have to make it up to him.

Later, the book is on my bedside table, the catalog cut out between the pages like a bookmark, and I put the lavender under my pillow - not because I think my wish will come true, but because Isabella gave it to me. It smells like her. It's that smell I always wondered about. It's her smell. I realize that when I answered her question, I should have chosen lavender as the one thing I wanted, but I didn't know then how much I wanted it.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

My sheets are all cool and smooth under my heated, just-showered skin, and my hair's soaking the pillow. I can smell my own naked body, fresh soap, jasmine. I smell like May and poetry, and I could be poetry, except that what happened this evening wasn't poetry. It was a lie. And I can't get it out of my mind.

Lying on my side, legs bent, I place my hand between my legs - still sore inside. I'm no longer a virgin. I've not only willingly given myself away, I sought it out.

Because of all I've heard of Jasper and sex, his notebook, I wasn't nervous asking him. I thought he would think of me as a means to sex, not as Victoria from school. And a virgin, no less. As far as rumors went, virgins were his specialty. I brought it up to him after school, outside, hidden as much as possible under a low-hanging tree with browning leaves. I said, "What do you think of the idea of you and me sleeping together?"

"I'd say that's some idea. When and where?"

He already had his hand on my waist, pulling me toward him, paying no mind to who might see us. I stood firm.

"Today."

He told me to come over. I'd work out the details in his room.

After dinner with my aunt, I went to his house. In his room, I told him I was a virgin. I asked him not to tell anyone about what would go on between us tonight, and I said we'd never have to see each other like this again. I expected nothing from him except his experience and making me feel comfortable - I demanded that part, my stipulation.

"You'll feel like the only girl in the world," he said with a smile, and he brought me in for a hug as if to seal the deal.

My nerves were millions of worms on my skin and under my skin, making me quiver.

Jasper didn't start things right away. He moved away from me, took a pack of cigarettes from a drawer, lit it and took a long inhale that made him shut his eyes up tight. He turned his head away from me when he blew out the smoke in a long, drawn-out stream.

He offered the package to me and I slipped one out.

It would help, I thought, to calm my nerves.

I held it between my lips and with a flick of his lighter, he lit it for me, his face so close. And so close, he said with a quiet laugh, "Good, we'll both taste like ashtrays."

He backed away, leaning against his long dresser and squinted his eyes a bit. "You surprised me. Everyone says you and Hood are together."

"Everyone's wrong."

"I have to ask you something." He pointed his cigarette at me. "I've been with virgins before."

I nodded.

"I have to ask you if you're sure about this, because I'm not your boyfriend. I'm nobody's boyfriend."

I answered on an exhale of smoke. "It has to be done." It's my only hope for the start of a love cure, I thought, but didn't say.

We smoked our cigarettes down in silence, looking at each other, looking away, looking back again. I broke the silence. "I'm not your girlfriend, either, so don't get clingy."

He laughed, stubbed both of our cigarettes out and took that as his cue to touch me. His hands came to either side of my waist, inched my shirt up, then slithered underneath, up my sides, all the way up under my arms to the tops of my ribs. By my ribs, he pulled me closer to him and kissed my lips.

He did taste like smoke and I didn't realize then how relieved I would be later to know that I never tasted his pure and real taste, nor did he taste mine.

Hands slow to remove my clothes, he laid me down.

"This is for you." He lowered himself over me, holding most of his weight off me with a hand against the bed beside me, a bicep flexed. "You don't have to do anything at all."

He made more professions that turned into naked kisses over my naked body. I remember his hand soft against my breast, light squeezes, and his tongue circling my nipple, his fingers between my legs.

He was so good at what he did, so concentrated on me, that I almost could've believed he loved me if he'd said it.

He brought me so close to my peak with his fingers before he entered me for the first time. The first time ever.

"Victoria." His whisper shook against my skin as his hand brought my hips up toward him. "You feel good."

He kept whispering, heavy breaths against my shoulder, my throat, kisses on my neck, licking, and his whispers right on my skin, told me again how good I felt to him. It was enough to take most of my mind off the pain.

He gave me exactly what I had asked him for, did everything right, and still, afterward as I lay against him, this person I'd known for years, yet hardly knew at all, I felt cheap. I felt used. I felt dirty. I'd given my virginity up in a sort of contract, a deal. It was a mistake I could never take back.

I sat up. "I have to go." I reached for my clothes.

"You okay, baby?"

"Don't call me that." I wiped my eyes and pulled on my jeans.

Jasper was up, stepping into his underwear. I was almost at the door when he caught me and turned me around, hands on my shoulders. Bending down so we were face to face, he looked into my eyes as if he might never stop. He dragged his hands along my shoulders, up my neck to my face. His hold on my face was barely a touch, his thumb taking my tears.

"Hey," he whispered. "Don't go like this."

"I shouldn't - I - I shouldn't have…"

"Come here." His voice was still a whisper and with an arm over my shoulder he brought me back to the bed. "Here, sit down."

I sat.

He pulled a flower from a vase near his bed, a red rose, and brought it over to me. He held it up to my face. "It's a match," he said. "Beautiful."

I didn't know how to respond, couldn't tell if he was serious or not.

"Close your eyes."

I closed them and he caressed my face with the rose, the softest feeling I'd ever felt. He caressed down my forehead, nose, lips, chin, down my throat to my chest and back up. When I opened my eyes, he handed me the rose.

"It's yours." Then he knelt down, and with me sitting on the bed he was slightly shorter than me. He lifted his face and kissed my lips. "Not a mistake. Okay? This was all for you. No mistakes."

All tears had disappeared. I was touched. Jasper could be caring. He could be caring and charming and gentle. Of course I'd demanded most of that of him as a stipulation, but he'd followed through on every promise.

"You're good at this. If you're serious right now, you might make a really great boyfriend to someone someday."

His laugh was closed-mouth and cute.

"I don't have to ignore you at school. I don't do that, you know? Ignore girls that I um…" He pointed to the bed.

I told him that I was okay, and that I knew he had all his friends and I had my few, and I wouldn't expect anything from him at school. The truth was, I would never want James to find out, and if Jasper and I were suddenly buddies, there would be too many questions asked.

"Okay but just-" he crossed over me onto the bed and pulled me next to him "-come here." He hugged me against his body with both of his arms. Holding. Tight. He held me so tight.

I'd never been held like that before. Not by James or anyone. And the fact that it was Jasper? I couldn't think about that. I just closed my eyes and relished the feeling. For a little while I pretended he was James.

"Victoria," Jasper said, reminding me that he wasn't James. "I remember what you look like naked."

I didn't say anything. What is anyone supposed to say to that?

"Can I draw your beauty later?"

And then I understood what he was getting at. So, this is how he did it. Did he always ask permission? Did he really care if he got permission or not?

"I don't want to be that."

"Be what?"

"Just that. Just a thing."

He turned me onto my back, looking into my eyes, tracing fingers down my arm.

"It's not a thing. You're not a thing. That's not what the sketchbook is. The sketchbook is…" He rolled over, falling onto his back, explaining himself up to the ceiling. "It's something that I feel like I can't stop. My fingers itch to do it. You know? I can't help it."

"You're compelled to do it." Thinking of my poetry, I understood him.

"Yeah. And it's something I really, even if nobody believes me - fucking Cullen doesn't even believe me - but it's something I care about. It's like an extension of myself."

"But you show people. It's like a brag book."

"Yeah, I'm proud of it." He laughed, and then shifted around to look at me again. "I could just draw your body, or parts of you. I don't have to include your face. Nobody but me will know it's you. That'll be our thing. And you can check out the sketchbook before you decide, if you want. It's all about curves and lines and beauty. It's not porn." He laughed again. "That's not what it's for. I'm serious."

"Is Lauren in there?"

"Mallory? Fuck, no." He actually shivered like she gave him the creeps, which made me smile.

"Do you know you're a little messed up, Jasper?"

He brought his nose down to my temple. He was making this an intimate conversation. "Who isn't?"

"And you won't draw my face?"

"Not if you don't want me to." His lips brushed over my cheek.

"Or my hair?"

"Nope."

"And it's all drawn from your memory?"

He tapped the side of his head and nodded.

"I don't know."

"Okay. You can say no."

I thought about it. This was a moment in my life I wanted to forget, not something I wanted documented in any way, anywhere.

His hand on my waist, pulled me close against him, and he rested his chin on my shoulder. "How about if it's not a nude? I'll add your sexy as fuck lace underwear and your bra. I'll put more detail into your underwear than your body. How about that? But…" he lifted my shirt with his hand, exposing my stomach, and unbuttoned my pants, pushing them just slightly down, along with the tiptop of my panties, planting a kiss with some tongue where my trio of dark freckles form a tiny obtuse triangle. His kiss tickled there and I had to squirm. "These, I have to include."

"You're not going to give up, are you?"

He buttoned up my pants, tugged my shirt back down, and wiggled his fingers at me like a magician getting ready to perform a trick. "I told you. I can't help it. And check it out, now you know something about me that's insane."

I got myself into this whole thing, sex with Jasper, knowing I would probably end up in his book, but not knowing that he would ask permission, or that he would even let me have a say in how he drew me. Still, it's really weird to give permission for something like this.

When I was ready to leave, Jasper made sure I took the rose, walked me to my car and he kissed me goodbye. Not once had he made me feel like he was trying to get rid of me or rush me out; in fact he had tried to keep me there longer when I told him I was ready to go. It may have been a mistake, a big naïve mistake, but no longer did I feel cheap or dirty. He did that. Jasper. I couldn't believe it. In my aunt's car, after he kissed me one more time, I gave him permission to draw me. Faceless and not nude. Just for him, because he had to, like me with my poetry.

Now, on my own bed, all covered under my sheets from head to toe, with my hand between my legs, I know what I've done. I may not feel cheap or dirty anymore, but I know I've lost something, and the person who has it, and will have it forever, is Jasper, when the only person I want to have it is James.

I touch myself, thinking about the things that Jasper did to my body, but I pretend he's James. He was James all along. My fingers are slow and circling, and they move faster when I need them to, and when I come, with my back and neck arched, I'm dreaming of James. _James._ His quiet name falls over the edge with me. His name collects my tears.

I'm not love cured. Not even close.

I put my pajamas on, slip into slippers, go to the bathroom to pee and wash my hands and then grab the rose and my poetry book, unlocking it on my way out to the deck by my room.

Looking out at the black-as-tar trees, in the freezing cold night, I think about love.

Love is tar that captures you and won't free you. Struggle all you want, it takes something otherworldly to get out.

Under the outdoor light, sitting with my back against the house and my legs pulled up, I write a poem about a girl who gives everything away to the person she knows is right. She gives him her sense of humor in ribbons, her sadness in raindrops, her fears in stars, and her memories in windstorms. She gives away her expectations in rainbows, her ambition in train tracks, her dreams in sunrises, and her regrets in kisses. The only thing she keeps for herself is her virginity in rose petals, and even if she's given away everything else that she is, she still feels whole.

Underneath the poem I write:_ I have to stop loving you._

It's the title of the poem, and it goes at the end.

Sometimes you don't really know anything until it's the end.

I stand and tear my rose apart petal by petal, letting each go in the wind, except for one, which I press in between these pages of my poetry book.

Back inside I cross the dark hallway and knock on my aunt and uncle's door. I don't hear anything. I peek in and see only my aunt in bed. Mud's working the nightshift at the lodge. Closing the door behind me, I slip into bed with my aunt and cuddle up beside her warm squishy body, tucking my poetry book between my knees.

"Is everything okay, sweetheart?"

I sniffle and take a breath. "I slept with someone for the first time, Auntie. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before."

She turns around and gathers me into her arms, petting my hair. "Sweetie," she says a few times. "Sweetie. It's a confusing time, your teenage years. You'll be okay."

She asks me if it was James and I tell her I wish but he doesn't want me.

"Were you safe?"

"Yeah. He's kind of a slut." I laugh, drying my face on her pajama sleeve. "But he was good to me."

"Do you want to hear about my first time?"

"Not really." I smile, and she tells me anyway.

"I was sixteen, no, fifteen, the boy was sixteen. We were in his parents' den watching TV. We started necking and we didn't even take off all of our clothes. It was his first time too and he had no idea what he was doing." She starts laughing. "He kept jabbing at me." She can hardly speak. "He asked me to help him, but I was shy and didn't know what to do either. All we knew was what was supposed to go where, but we didn't know how to get it in there." She laughs even harder.

"Anyway, not to torment you with details, but it was over in a flash and even though there was a little stinging, I wasn't even certain if I was still a virgin or not. That's how fast it was before it was over." She's laughing so hard I have to hit her arm to stop her, but I'm laughing, too.

"Your first time?" She's calm now, bringing a hand down my face to my shoulder. "It's such a myth that it's supposed to be beautiful and perfect. It's supposed to be painful and embarrassing."

"But I thought I was ready and it turns out I wasn't."

"Ah, well, it's done, isn't it? You can't take it back, can you?"

I shake my head.

"It wasn't the special thing that you thought it would be, and that's okay. Next time, when you find the right person, it'll be what you want."

"Do you really think there's a special thing waiting for me?"

"Oh, don't break my heart, you." She pulls me tight into a hug, almost clobbering me with the top of her breasts. Her hand slides down my hair, fingers tangling in my curls. " You're a lovely girl, Victoria. Why wouldn't there be? Many special things are coming your way. A multitude. Some are already with you."

She tells me I can sleep with her tonight. I plan on staying for just a little while longer, but I'll leave soon in case Mud comes home. Before she goes to sleep, she tells me she'll take me to the doctor to get me on birth control.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading. :)<p> 


	11. Flotsam

.

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Flotsam**

**Edward**

Isabella cheers like a mad person at Max's soccer game. It's an early game, and they're playing in the rain, Isabella and I both holding umbrellas over us. She doesn't even know the game or when to cheer, but whenever Max makes the slightest move on the field, she cheers, her rainbow-striped umbrella bouncing or swaying above her. She doesn't seem bothered by the fact that her hair gets wetter with every cheer. On the field, mud-splattered Max can't stop smiling, and really, on the sidelines, I can't either.

I decide now, Isabella jumping up and down beside me - "Go Max!" - that she deserves to get her wish.

After I drop Isabella off at home, I turn to Max. "Want to go on a search with me? We'll have to go to Port Angeles."

"For what?"

"A camera."

I stop home first for Max to get in a quick shower - his legs are covered in mud - and then he begs me to take the Porsche instead of the old Mustang. I agree to it, and we hit the road.

Turns out our final destination isn't Port Angeles. Unless I want to wait weeks for the camera to be shipped to me, we have to go all the way to Seattle to pick it up.

I drive fast, tires hugging the curves, and for once, my passenger is telling me to go faster instead of slow down.

"Not too fast, kid," I say. "Gotta get there in one piece."

Stopping by a few more stores for new clothes, we come across an art walk going on in an open park. The ground is layered with leaves that nobody bothered brushing aside before displaying paintings on easels - or maybe the piled up leaves is part of the whole art thing they have going on. It is pretty beautiful - something I think Isabella would want to witness, camera-ready. Without thinking, I grasp a little tighter to the bag in my hand. The saleswoman had asked me if I wanted it gift wrapped, and I decided against it. I don't want to make it a big deal; I just want Isabella to have it.

Max and I hang out for a while checking out the art, talking with the artists. Each artist is prepared for rain with a tent overhead. They may have had rain earlier, but now, in the late afternoon, they've got strong sun shining low, streaming through town before evening wheels around.

There's some girl here, around Max's age, displaying her paintings. They're unbelievable.

"I can paint you," she tells Max, taking him by the sleeve. "Sit down." She motions to an empty plastic chair and starts painting Max's portrait before he's even fully seated. Curls tumble down to the bottom of her neck, out from under a tilted beret. She's wearing lipstick that matches the red in her coat. In under ten minutes she's finished with the watercolor portrait.

"How much?" I ask when she hands the painting over, the perfect likeness of my brother.

"Fifteen," the little hustler says.

I reach for my wallet and hand her a twenty, telling her to keep the change. Even if it was forced on us, it's well worth more than twenty.

"Aw, I thought she just liked me," Max says.

"She probably did, she just wanted to sell a painting more."

"What am I going to do with it?"

"I'll take it if you don't want it. I think I need paintings or something in the pool house anyway."

For dinner, I take him to a diner a few buildings over, an old-fashioned place with checkered walls and floors, personal radio players on each table, and such bright overhead lighting you almost have to squint.

There's a real backend of a classic Chevy coming out of one wall, and a part of me mourns for the rest of that car.

Max chooses some songs from our radio, but it seems so many other songs were picked before his, we won't hear his choices unless we stay all night.

"I like this place," he says when his food is brought to him on a plate in the shape of a car. He ordered a kids' meal so he could get mac 'n cheese with his burger.

"Yeah, I should've ordered a kids' meal, too." I turn my own, regular plate around. "Boring."

Max complains when the next song that comes over the speakers isn't his. "The least they can do is give you the option to turn it down when it's something you don't want to hear. I mean, they're making us shout and we're sitting right across from each other!"

I pop a fry into my mouth, laughing. "You'll survive, old man."

We talk about Max's game, our day, the art, the girl who painted Max, all of that, before I chance bringing up an issue I've been wanting to talk to Max about since the first week of school. It's a conversation whose urgency was fueled further by Max's questioning of being "cool."

"What's going on with the rest of the guys? You're always hanging out with Josh, and that's cool, he's a cool kid, but where'd the rest of your buds disappear to?"

"They all suck. I don't like them anymore."

"Why not?"

He shrugs. "They're always picking fights, and like, ditching school and stuff. And they make fun of you if you don't do it, too." He squirts more ketchup on his plate and it seems he's not really in this conversation. Does it really not mean much to him or is he trying to avoid it?

"They make fun of _you_? Or just people, in general?"

"Did you ditch school before?"

I want the truth to be that I never ditched school. Unfortunately, it isn't. "Yeah. I ditched classes sometimes. Not really ever a whole day. But sometimes, with the guys, I did ditch a class. It's a stupid thing to do. My grades sucked. You don't want to do that."

"Did you smoke? These guys think it's cool to smoke."

I lean forward, my eyes widening. "Smoke what?"

"Cigarettes." He kind of glares at me. "What'd you think I meant?"

"Um, nothing. Don't smoke, kid. And don't do what I did. I was an idiot. You know what?"

He bites into his burger and asks, "What?" with a mouthful.

"I look up to you. I really do. You're awesome. I may be older, but you're smarter. You are. Just keep being you, Max. Don't change yourself just because other people think it's cool or because I did it once. The truth is, I don't smoke anymore and I don't ditch classes anymore. It took me five years of school to learn what you already know in seventh grade."

"You don't look up to me."

"Calling me a liar?"

He laughs, his expression still somewhat shocked. He really doesn't know who he is, and maybe, at thirteen, he isn't supposed to. But I wish he did.

.

Ever since my party, I've sort of fallen in to hanging out with Isabella, Victoria, and James at lunch. It began with just Isabella, but a few days later, she wanted to sit with Victoria, who obviously sat with James.

After Victoria was dosed, and both James and I were worried about her, I wouldn't call us friends, but we're cool with hanging out, I guess.

"Have you ever looked at the word 'minimum' in print?" Victoria asks me. Since the weather's dry, she wanted to have lunch outside, and she's sitting on top of the picnic table, her feet on the bench. "It's the most perfectly symmetrical word I've ever seen. Check it out." She bends the textbook toward me.

"You're high," I say, without looking. I'm too busy looking at Isabella standing over there in a crowd with Jasper, several tables over. They're laughing. She hugs him, then heads over to us. She's smiling.

Hopping over the bench, she sits next to me at the table. "They're calling this table Misfit Island. I've been warned that hanging out with you guys is social suicide." Her smile grows as she talks; she seems amused by this.

Victoria turns around to face the table, moving down to the bench on the other side of me.

"Who said that?" I ask.

"I don't remember who started it. Lauren or Angela, maybe Jessica? I don't know, but all those girls agreed."

"What did you tell them?"

"I'll take my chances. Yeah, like they can control who I'm friends with. You know, they say you two-" she gestures across to James and then over to Victoria "-think you're better than everyone else now that Cullen's hanging out with you."

We all laugh, except for Isabella.

"What's funny? I think they're right. You are too good for them."

"No," James says. "You didn't grow up here. To hear them think we're too good for them?" His finger points and taps the table as he talks. "They spent half their lives trying to let us know that we weren't fit to share the same sidewalk as them."

"Not all of them," I say, and James doesn't like it. He shoots me a look that warns me not to stand up for any of them. But I don't take well to threatening looks.

"Lauren, Jessica, Newton, Crowley and all their followers, yeah, they had it out for both of you. But Alice, Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie? They were indifferent to all of it. They've never cared what those idiots think."

"I'm getting a coke. I'm not listening to this." Victoria leaves.

I feel Isabella eying James like she expects James to follow Victoria. I kind of do, too. But he doesn't move or even look over his shoulder.

"Aren't you going after her?" Isabella asks him.

All he does is shake his head, his focus on me. "Okay, _inside man_, if Whitlock's indifferent, then why is Victoria in his sketchbook?"

I look past him to see Victoria still retreating from us. "She isn't."

"Maybe not her face."

And James is pissed. His voice was low, controlled, but he looks like he's about to throw his fist right through the table.

"What sketchbook?" Isabella asks, and I know she's in it and all I want is for this conversation to be over before I have to tell her what the sketchbook means. "You mean because he draws pictures of people? He drew one of me." She shrugs. "Is that a bad thing?"

James gives her a look that shows he's just as shocked to hear it as I once was to see it.

We all sit back and pretend to eat. Isabella doesn't press the issue.

"I thought you knew what kind of guy Jasper is," I say.

"Yeah, it's not that hard to figure out. He's pretty much the 'I wear my flaws on my sleeve' kind of guy."

"So, why are you huggin' on him?"

Her face jolts toward me. "Huggin' on him? Those girls just got through telling me that if I come over here, it's social suicide. It made me laugh. I bid them a dramatic, you know, like, old-time actress 'farewell' since I was going off to my _social death_. Jasper liked that bit. He hugged me. And anyway, I didn't know I wasn't allowed to hug him. It's not like I have a_ boyfriend,_ do I?" She tosses the rest of her bag lunch into the trash beside our table. I don't think she really ate any of it. "I'm going to find Victoria. You guys kind of suck today."

"We suck," I tell James.

"Guess so."

I ask him about what went down between Victoria and Jasper.

"I'm not telling her what I saw. But Whitlock? She wouldn't. No way. He's up to something. I don't think he's telling the truth about that sketchbook. Or he's letting you all believe what you want to believe."

"How do you know she's in it?"

"The dude buys from me, man. And why would he leave it open for me to see?"

"But if her face wasn't in it, how do you know it's her?"

"Let's just say I do. No doubt."

Now I'm blown away because I never thought the "friends with benefits" rumors were true. Especially not with the way Victoria talks about James.

He's shaking his head. "No, nothing like that. I saw her, but only because she was candy-flippin' that one night. She was pretty outta control."

But Jasper and Victoria? I'm still not believing it's her in the picture; it makes no sense. I don't think he would've gone after Victoria, and Victoria wouldn't have gone after him. "How would he have seen her? I mean, enough of her to draw her?"

"Fuck if I know. All it would really take to draw her the way he did is to see her in a bikini. And he's over there talking to Mallory, isn't he? She's had it out for Victoria since-"

"No way. Jasper wouldn't be in on anything with Mallory."

"Sure about that?" He nods his chin, his eyes shifting past me.

I glance over my shoulder and Jasper is still there, surrounded by the same crowd of girls. "What's he up to?"

"I don't fucking know. But guess who's going to find out."

_Inside man_, I think. And I have more than just Victoria to confront him about.

.

I don't say a word to Jasper until we're in his room, and even then I take my time. He has to ask me "What's up?" to get me to start talking.

"I want Isabella and Victoria taken out of your book."

"Why, man?" He picks the sketchbook up off his dresser. "Why do you care?"

"The whole book should burn, and I'll do it if they're not taken out."

"Fuck off. It's my book." He's actually hugging the book to his chest with one arm. "Shit, I know you've got something going on with Isabella, but she earned her spot."

"How did I never know what an asshole you are?"

"Because you were just as big an asshole? You got off on this sketchbook. Now because some of your new friends are in it, it's wrong? Whatever happened to make you _Señor Sensitive-o_ fucking sucks. You lost your balls in the process."

He's already started swearing like crazy, and when he starts in, I start in, so I know this is going to be a fuck heavy conversation.

"Yeah, that does fucking suck. Hand over the pictures."

He tears one out and hands it to me. "How'd you know about Victoria?"

"You bought from James?" I take the drawing and start to rip it up.

"Don't." His face and shoulders cringe. "Don't do that in front of me."

"Why was she in there?"

"None of your goddamned business."

"Does anyone else know this-" I hold up the partially torn sketch "-is her?"

"Nobody else has seen it. I didn't even know Hood saw it. I was still finishing it up - guess I left it out."

"How did you see her? You spying on her or something?"

"Fuck, Cullen, give me some fucking credit. _Fuck_." He shakes his head. "I fucking saw her, and you don't fucking repeat it. Not to Hood or anyone else. Not Isabella. No one."

"How did you see her? When? Here?" I glance at the bed and scratch my forehead. This can't be right.

"Nice try."

"What was she? Is this a joke? She gets enough shit at school. Why don't you lay off?"

"It's not a fuckin' joke. Why don't you fuck off with that shit?"

"Now, Isabella's." I motion with my hand for him to give it to me before I get too far sidetracked. "She didn't know you, man. She wasn't trying to earn anything. The girls you draw in there, they pose for you. They know what they're doing and for whatever fucking reason they want to be a part of it. You've got them thinking it's some privilege-"

"Hey, they have minds; they make their own choices."

"But Isabella doesn't even know what your sketchbook means."

"All right man, but only for you. Don't go blabbing about this. I don't need every girl-I-ever-fucked's boyfriend coming after my sketches. This is my journal, you motherfucker."

"Last I heard, journals were personal. You flash yours to anyone who wants a look."

There's no way I'll be able to tear up Isabella's picture. It's just her face. I fold it up with Victoria's and slide them into my back pocket. I'll give the pictures to the girls, let them decide what to do with them.

"What went on with you and Victoria, anyway?"

"Ask her, man. I'm not saying a word. Maybe if you were who you used to be, but now? No fucking way."

I'm _Inside Man_ no more.

"What the fuck's up with you? Do you even remember who you were? Who we were?"

"I remember."

"You remember having a fuck-it-all good ass fucking time? Our trips to Port Angeles, the girls. So easy. The car rides. You and me, man. It was you. And me." He points to me and then himself.

I sit in his chair next to the slider and look out. There's rain out there, turning the dirt in their garden to mud. "Yeah, I remember. It was a good time, but that's not me anymore. No more."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because it's not."

"What about everyone from out there? You see any of them anymore? How about Heidi?"

Heidi. I haven't even thought about her. I see her smile, her hair cut short, just below her ears, and how I slipped my fingers back there to pull her closer to my face. I hear her laugh. I feel her hands on me._ I like the way you kiss_, she told me, and I said it back to her even though I didn't care how she kissed, as long as she just kissed me. She was the closest thing to a girlfriend I've ever had, and still she was nowhere near.

My father wanted it - he introduced us at some hospital banquet. Heidi's father is some fellow surgeon. My father was pissed when he found out I was bringing other girls home. He told me to be true to Heidi. All my mom said was, _Treat the girls right._

I didn't listen to either one of them.

"I haven't seen her since…"

"She was at your mom's funeral."

"Yeah, since then."

"You blocking her calls like you do mine?"

He pulls my attention from the view outside I wasn't really seeing anyway. He's got an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He lights it up.

"I don't block - it's not like that. I'm just not into that scene anymore. I'm not. I can't be."

He takes a drag. And as he lets his smoke out, he asks, "It's because of what happened to your mom, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, it is. And Max. Seriously, Max."

He takes a seat on his bed and another drag.

"I guess the right thing to do is be supportive or some shit?"

I don't say anything.

"Doing the right thing sucks balls, Shorty."

I get that he's saying he misses how things used to be. He won't say it in those words. I try to imagine what it would be like if roles were reversed, if he was the one who pulled a near-one-eighty, if he was the one who turned away without a glance back.

"I'm sorry." I'm apologizing for deciding not to be someone I don't want to be, which is a bullshit thing to apologize for. But I'm also apologizing for turning my back on him, on our past. In a way, I've left him alone. Not that Jasper would ever be alone; he'd never let himself. But he's right. It used to be him and me. It was all-nighters and us in the front seat, two girls in the back on our way to his house or mine. It was a chick on top of me in one room, Jasper on top of a chick in another room. And it was worry free. Consequence free because we didn't even think about consequences. It was always willing girls, and the booze that helps. It was girl laughter, and guy fist-bumping. It was Jasper chain-smoking and me strumming the guitar 'till dawn. It was driving the girls home in the morning while Jasper sat in the backseat sketching out pictures. It was on and on and on until it all ended in one day.

"It is what it is."

.

On the drive home it's all invading my mind - things I haven't thought about since before my mom passed away. Heidi did show up, a week after the funeral, knocking on the pool house door. My dad sent her out, still wanting us together, I guess. I went over to the door and locked it, never answered it. I'm sure she knew I was in there ignoring her. She left me one more voicemail after that, told me she'd miss me.

I should've at least called her back. Just once. At least to tell her I wasn't interested in that life anymore.

But it's too late for that now.

_Wanna see something pretty?_ she said to me our first time together, my first time. With a dry mouth, I nodded, and she unzipped her dress, let it fall. She wore nothing underneath. She wasn't a virgin.

The thoughts are running as wild as Jasper and I used to be until they calm down into Isabella. Where would I be now if I was still that same guy? Would I have fucked her and let her go? Would I be missing out on everything she is?

When I get home, I call her and ask her to come over. I have something for her.

"Me? The hugger-onner of guys?"

"Come on." I rub my face up and down. "It was just a question. Hug who you want."

"Thanks for your permission."

She says she'll be over when she finishes her homework.

"What ya got for me?" she says, hours later as she walks through the door. Her hair's kind of messy and a little rain-wet. I open a drawer, pull out the box and place it in her open hand.

She gasps, one hand shooting to her chest. "What is this?" I can't figure out the tone of her voice. She doesn't sound happy, but not mad either. Something in between, like maybe she doesn't know how she's feeling.

"A camera."

"No, Edward, it's a _two thousand_ dollar camera." She pushes it at me.

"Forget about the money." I push her hands and the camera back against her stomach.

"You can't give me this." She pushes it back at me, and we continue this back and forth throughout our argument.

"I want you to have it."

"I don't want it."

"Yes, you do."

"Edward, you can't give me this!"

"If I wanted to give you a pack of gum, could I give you that?"

"It's different."

"Not really. I want you to have this." I push it back at her one more time and hold her hands there so she can't push it forward again.

"Every time I use it, I'll be reminded that you bought it for me."

"That's what gifts are."

"Edward."

"It's yours. I'm not taking it back."

"I can't take it."

"Maybe it isn't from me, exactly. Maybe it was the lavender under your pillow."

"Don't make fun of me.

"Sorry, but it's yours."

"It isn't mine."

"All right, it isn't yours. It's mine, and I want you to use it. Can you at least do that? Can you use my camera?"

She opens the box, takes the camera out, dropping the box on the bed, and turns the camera over in her hand. She switches the power on and peeks through the viewfinder, adjusts the focus. "You charged it up, too?" When she pulls it from her face, I spot wetness in her eyes. "It isn't fair. I can't turn it down."

"I really don't want you to turn it down. I want you to have it. I went out looking for it for you. It gave me and Max something to do together. So I should be thanking you, really. Take it. Say it's your birthday present from me and my brother. We missed your birthday. And, _Bella_," I say that name on purpose. Her name. "You deserve it. I want you to know that I think you deserve to have it."

"I'm just going to borrow it. Or I'll pay you back in monthly installments."

I laugh, all frustrated. "That isn't the point. Look, if you take the camera, then I'll promise to stock up on peaches and eat them every time I feel like playing the guitar. How's that?"

"You drive a hard bargain."

She gives me a kind of shy or reluctant thank you and then takes my picture as I tell her she's welcome. As she checks out the image in the screen, there are tears streaming down her cheeks, and this time, _this cry_, I'm not ashamed is caused by me.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

October, the amber month, and the twenty-fourth, my birthday. Dead leaves, the color of tree sap, take over the ground, the wind, the cars, and yet in Forks and surrounding Forks, there's still so much green. Everywhere you look, mountains of green.

Just like the past four years, James and his mom join us at the lodge for my birthday dinner. His dad came for a couple of years, but of course, he can't anymore.

We meet them in the parking lot, all of us right on time. James is wearing a fedora and a loose button down shirt. He looks relaxed and he smiles for me, opening an arm, and there's no possibility of me talking to him tonight about the distance I need from him. But when he puts his arm around me, it feels heavy, like the sky right now, thick with clouds so low that instead of appearing vast and endless, the sky feels encaging. If I reach up through the clouds, I'm certain my hand will hit surface, like a roof, or a lid. I can't help but twist out of James' hold.

Inside, gift shop to the left, restaurant to the right, we follow our host to a big round table in front of the fire, glowing warm and a little humid with how damp it is here just after the rain. I sit between my aunt and James.

His mom tells him to remove his hat at the dinner table. He does, placing it on my head and patting the top.

"Nice," he says to me, and then to his mother he says, "The Birthday Girl can wear hats anywhere, anytime." He whacks the brim of the hat with a finger.

"How do you like my lipstick?" James' mom asks me, leaning forward to peer around James.

"Pretty," I say. The last time I was at their house, she paraded around showing us her "interview outfit." I hadn't seen her that done up in a long time: pumps, straight skirt to her knees, her hair curled and twisted into a loose knot at the crown of her head. I swiped my lipstick out of my bag and applied it to her lips. "Finishing touch," I said. "Now you'll get the job, for sure."

A few times during dinner, James' hand finds its way under my hair and squeezes the back of my neck. It occurs to me that this is something he's been doing for a long time. I used to rarely even notice it. But now I can't help but feel it. It feels too much like something a boyfriend might do and reminds me too much of Jasper's touch, reminds me how close James was to finding out. Edward brought me Jasper's drawing the other day, his eyes like bolded question marks.

"I didn't look at it," he said, standing on my doorstep, lowering his hood. "And you don't seem that shocked to see it."

"I…" A longer gaze at the sketch shows me lying on my side in shaded lace, legs crossed, and the freckles he promised just below my stomach. And one corkscrew curl dangling over one shoulder. The whole thing looks very real. Too real.

"Hey, Victoria." He brought a hand to my shoulder and squeezed. "You all right?"

"Can you not tell James? If I decide to tell him, I'll tell him, otherwise-"

"It's true? You and Jasper? _Why?_" His voice grew quiet on the "why" like it stood for some shameful secret.

"Don't ask me that. I mean, why did you sleep with anyone you slept with?"

He starts nodding. "Got it. Yeah, you're right."

"You won't tell James, will you?"

"He's seen the picture, he's the reason I have it, but he's completely denying everything. He doesn't think you'd ever - and neither did I. I didn't believe it until I saw your face just now."

And now, reminded of all of this, and James knowing something, but not knowing all of it, I reach back and make him release my neck.

He looks over at me now and mouths,_ What?_

"Just, don't."

Still, he doesn't give up trying to make me laugh. Whenever Mud starts to say anything, James interrupts him. He keeps singing The Clash's_ Spanish Bombs_, accent and all, so it sounds like _Spanish Bums._

His thumbs drum a rhythm on the table.

Everyone stares at him.

"Won't get outta my head. You know how it is."

He cracks several knock, knock jokes that are so awful they're funny. And he keeps asking for someone to pass the salt; he must have asked seven times already.

"It's still right in front of you," his mother says. "What's the matter with you? Where are your manners?" She dabs a napkin at a corner of her lip-sticked mouth.

"Sorry, I forgot." He adds more salt to his plate.

"At this rate you'll be eating nothing but salt," I tell him.

"Long as you're smilin'." He tosses an overly salted fry into his mouth, his smile crunching it away. It's not a fake smile, either. His eyes are involved, and unclouded. He's sober.

"You want an order of fries with your salt?" Aunt Cheri asks. His mom and Mud might want to strangle him after tonight, but Aunt Cheri loves James' humor about as much as I do.

Mud starts to compliment their new chef, and again, James interrupts him.

"Did you know my cousin Marc sweats whenever he eats cheese? I kid you not. One bite and his forehead drips with sweat. Even after he wipes at it, it keeps going, like sprinklers have turned on in his head. Horrible."

I laugh into my hands. It's a whole body laugh; my shoulders are quaking.

"James! What has gotten into you tonight? Table manners!"

"Sorry, Ma, it's just an allergy. They don't follow manner rules."

"Humans do."

James turns to me, fingers dripping down his face from his forehead as if they're beads of sweat. "Horrible."

Aunt Cheri and I crack up.

Tonight he's the same James he's always been, the James I know every nuance of, the James I don't want any break from. But he's also the same James I've grown to love, and so I remind myself that I need distance.

James asks me to ride with him and his mom back to their house. He has a present for me.

In his room, I ask him if he has a special birthday bowl.

"You want to smoke a bowl?" He locks his door and opens his window, not waiting for or needing an answer.

He packs his pipe and passes it to me first, holding the flame over it.

"Pipe dreams," he says as I take my hit.

"So," he says, falling sideways on his bed, resting on his forearm, pipe in his hand. "Eighteen. Feel any different?"

"I've felt different since I was six." I take the pipe from him for another hit.

"Any different from seventeen, though?"

I pretend to think about it even though I don't have to. In my pause, I sit on the opposite side of the bed from him, my legs stretched out in front of me. "Not a smidge."

Everything that changed and made me feel different happened when I was seventeen, and today I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday.

"I think you should keep that hat. It looks better on you."

"Everything looks better on me." I lower the hat and tilt it sideways over my forehead. I have to lift my head to see anything out of my right eye.

He takes my ankle and wiggles it back and forth and tells me he really does have an actual present for me.

He goes over to a dresser drawer and shuffles things around, pulling out a book and hands it to me, looking a little shy. I reposition the hat on my head so I can see, and turn the book over in my hand. It's bound with wood covers, a thick "V" carved into the front. Inside are thick, textured blank pages.

"I made it for you with scrap pieces at work. And the paper, it's from that store in town, you know with all the handmade things? The way I see it, the only kind of paper that deserves your poems is the kind that goes through a lot of trouble to exist."

I run a hand over the surface of the cover, the wood so smooth he must have sanded and polished it. I fumble with the little open lock on the side.

"It's a combination lock. You don't have to worry about losing a key."

"It's beautiful. Perfect." I stand up to hug him. "Thank you."

He shows me how to set the combination.

It's a school night and getting late, but I don't want to leave. Not yet. I glance down at his bed, tempted to spend the night. If my aunt and Mud didn't already know I was here, I would probably stay. I know I have to go, though, and my rational side understands it's better this way in the long run.

Instead of James giving me a ride home, I tell him I want to walk, and like I know he will, he offers to walk with me. I make us go the long way home and he doesn't complain.

I'm savoring this night with him, knowing I'm about to change everything we have between us tomorrow. I'm completely aware of what I'm doing. I even give him a too-long hug goodbye on my porch. When I hug him tighter, his hand runs up and down my back. He squeezes and lifts me a little.

"Happy Birthday, Victoria."

In bed, settling myself against pillows, I open my new poetry book; the first page is too blank. My eyes shift over to James' fedora sitting on top of my dresser, and I have my idea for the first poem that will go on the first page of my new book. It's one of James' knock, knock jokes from dinner.

I write:

_Knock, knock…_

_Who's there?_

_Ifyoucan't…_

_Ifyoucan't, who?_

_If you can't hang with the big dogs, stay out on the porch._

Even if it makes no sense as a knock, knock joke, I think it's the best kind of poetry - the kind of poetry that symbolizes absolutely nothing to one person, but everything to another.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you for sticking with this story. I love your devotion to Victoria. It makes me happy.


	12. Bones

.

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Bones**

**Victoria**

It's getting colder here - the air feels thinner, like it's shed a few layers. There's snow in the wind that burns when it hits my face. The flakes have a short life, melting to water as they find the ground. The sun's down for the night by the time I approach James' front porch. Instead of entering on my own, I knock on their door for the first time in years.

I'd like to turn around and just keep walking in the other direction, never face the door I'm facing now, readying myself to tell James what I need to tell him. No, keep walking in the direction of the forest, the place I used to go when I was younger, when I searched for that man who haunted my dreams, searched for his cabin, for the smile on his face that only I can make happen. Instead of finding him, I found my own place at the river, the spot I'd later bring James, and where James would teach me to fly-fish.

I remember just how to get to my spot, too. No map needed, it's all stored away in my brain, in some locked corner. I can get there with eyes closed.

Twelve paces, turn right. Twenty-three paces, turn left. Uphill. Between two narrow-gapped trees. One hundred paces straight ahead, ducking through branches, climbing over a fallen log. Careful of the hole in the ground, dug by what? I don't know, but I slipped into the small crater my first time.

Maybe James will follow me, silent until we get there. I'll turn around and there he'll be, and it won't be snowing, and it won't be dark. The sun will be out flexing its beams like muscles, making James' hair shine gold like the gleaming fishing rods that lean against his shoulders. A dimple-smile will cross his face, "Victoria," on his lips. And then, from behind, his arms around me, he'll help me with my first few casts until I remember how to do it just so.

The rhythm of it all.

The tiny splash as my line reaches the surface of the river, and it is just as if a fly landed on the water, stirring it up. And there's a sparkle from the sun that looks like tiny little mirrors all over the river reflecting nothing but happiness. It's exactly what happiness looks like, the shape, the shine, the color of stars. I can see it. And even though I'm fishing all perfectly fine on my own now, James will keep his arms around me just because. And this is what happiness feels like, the warmth, the comfort, the smile that tightens the entire face.

But the snow is still making me shiver, and the door is still in front of me, cold, hard wood. Too solid. I prefer the dream, the ease, the forest, the wind guiding my life. Nothing at all to make sense of; it just is.

"It wasn't locked," James says after opening the door.

"I didn't try it."

Melted snowflake water comes in with me under my shoes and I stomp it off on the doormat as the heat in their house makes me shiver the cold away. I smell some kind of meat cooking, like teriyaki, and probably rice, too, which always reminds me of the smell of paper.

James thinks I'm staying for dinner, but I'm not.

"Can we go to your room for a second?"

I wave at his mom on the way to his room. Inside he asks if I want to light up.

"No. I want to talk."

He takes a deep breath and rubs his chin. I understand why. He can hear the tone of my voice as clear as anything. With a hand he offers me a seat on his bed. I decline. So we're both standing and waiting - him waiting for something he can probably sense is off, me waiting for the right words and for the strength to get them out.

I decide to start with words he once gave me.

"Remember that day in the parking lot when you asked me if I needed time?"

He just raises his eyebrows.

"Well, I do. I just do. I'm all messed up inside, and-"

"Victoria." He rubs his forehead and closes his eyes. "Okay, look, I-"

"No."

His eyes snap to mine.

"I have to get over you, James. And I'm not sure I can if I see you all the time, you know? Maybe it was easy for you to get over me, but it isn't the same for me."

He lets out a snicker, shaking his head at the floor. It looks like a gesture equivalent to an eye roll, and I don't know what to make of it.

I take a seat on his bed. There's so much quiet in the room, I can hear the soft sound of his bed comforter as I sink into it. Even our breathing sounds loud.

"What about when you said you were used to us being friends?" His fingers comb through his hair.

"I lied."

Another deep breath from him, and he leans back against his dresser.

"You're too nice to me. If I could be mad at you maybe it would all be easier, but I can't be mad. I can't be anything but…" I don't finish my thought. Finishing it would be admitting to him that I fall deeper in love with him every day, despite my efforts toward the opposite. On my next inhale, my chest quivers and my breath comes in quick quiet gasps, as if climbing stairs.

"What about at school?"

"We'll hang out at school. I'm not completely cutting you out of my life. Not cutting out, just cutting back. You know?"

"Rides?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so. Aunt Cheri will let me take her car on the days she's off, and I have Isabella on the other days. I'll manage it."

"It's all changing."

"It has to."

"How long, do you think?"

"I'll know when I know."

He comes over to sit next to me on the bed, his palm turning my face toward him. His fingers run down my cheek a few times, almost like he's petting me. They stop and just settle there, holding my face and I'm looking into his eyes, which are darting back and forth between mine. So blue. Does he know what he's doing to me? This close? His eyes boring into mine so hard I can feel them in my chest, in my stomach, in my knees? I can't breathe. My heart picks up the beat of both desire and frustration.

"I wish…" he starts and doesn't finish. He lets go of my face.

"Can't you just say it? I hate when you do that."

He peers over at me. "It's just. It wouldn't be easy for anyone to get over you."

_"See?_" Tears edge my eyes. "You say things like that and-"

"Should I be mean to you?" He sounds angry as he stands up in front of me. "Should I treat you like some puppy I don't want following me anymore?"

I get up to leave.

"Hey. Wait." He takes my hand, but I still face the door. "I didn't mean it like that. Seriously. I didn't."

I turn to him. "I know."

He bends his knees until our eyes are level and once again he seems to be searching mine.

"I wish things were different."

"But they aren't."

"You need time away from me." Maybe he needed to hear himself say it. He goes over to his window and opens it, but not to smoke or anything, it's more like he's hot. Dragging a hand down the side of his face, he turns back to me. "I'll give you that. And I'm trying to say... You think - but it won't be easy. Victoria, I get that this is hard for you, and I want you to know that it's hard for me, too. Just so we're clear on that. I'm afraid that... this is it."

"This is what?"

"_It._ Like, after you take your time, we'll never get this back. Right here. You." He points to me. "Here." He points to the floor and then his hand covers his mouth and he looks away and down.

"Maybe." My chin quivers and there's heat behind my eyes and an ache in my chest and scratchiness in my throat. "But I don't know what else to do. Do you?"

He doesn't answer.

"I have to go." When my hand touches the doorknob his voice stops me and has me turning around.

"Where do we go when school's over?"

The gathering of tears in my eyes graduate into something more - like rain-splashed windows I can't see through. "We go separate ways."

He shakes his head, his mouth tense, and he straightens up. "That's not how the game works. Where do we go, Victoria?"

I have to look away. "Maybe I'm done with games."

I leave, making my way to the front door.

James catches up with me right outside. Snowflakes are landing on his hair and shirt and then disappearing. He didn't take the time to grab his coat. He folds his arms and shivers.

"Sorry, I know you want to get away from me, but, I just have to tell you this. You need anything. Even_ one_ thing." He raises his index finger. "And I'm there."

The porch light flickers.

He wipes snowflakes off his cheek.

I don't say anything. I'd like to, but everything that comes to mind is something I'd say to him as the friends we used to be. In this new status I've put us in, none of it seems appropriate.

_"You're_ taking time. Not me. So I'm - I'm still here. Victoria, you're, you…"

"You're always doing that. Start to say something and then stop like you never started at all."

"Because…"

"Okay. Great." I go to my car. He doesn't try to stop me again and I drive myself home.

It seems I've entered my house a million times after leaving his, and never have I felt this empty inside.

I head straight to my room, a poem practically exploding through my body and out my fingers. My hand moves pen over paper and it's all frenzied and automatic, and like my hand is aware of my thoughts before I am. I'm discovering my own thoughts as I write.

I write about emptiness and how it fills you up until you can't breathe. It causes an ache in your chest and in the pit of your stomach. Emptiness is not nothing. Nothing is all you've never had. Emptiness is everything you once had all broken up into pieces until they're so small they disappear from sight but you can feel them like shards of glass everywhere. Emptiness is pained experience.

I shuffle through my closet, all the way to the back where I find my old fairy wings wrapped in plastic. I take them out and put them on. I sleep in them, and they leave glitter all over my sheets. And the wings are James. And this is goodbye.

Emptiness is this.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

Isabella says that she and her father plan to paint their living room as a surprise for her mother. At school, she wrangles James, Victoria, and me into helping her. Turns out, the only one of us with any previous wall-painting experience tells me that if Victoria's doing it, he has to bow out. He doesn't go into any explanation, just shuts down, and I don't ask.

On Saturday Renee will be out at an open-house all day, and I pick Isabella up in the morning to take her to the hardware store. We head out before her mother does, the strategy being that we'll return just after Renee leaves, buying us as much time as possible to get the job done.

She says the color her mom wants is called _Beach Cottage Blue_. Charlie's at home getting ready to prep up the living room as soon as Renee steps out the door. Victoria's waiting for Isabella's call and she'll meet us later.

The rain is coming and going, puddles turning into ice in between downpours. No rain when we enter the hardware store, but when we exit with three cans of paint, rollers, edgers, and paint pans, the rain is dropping in buckets.

We're laughing when we shove ourselves dripping wet into the Mustang, stuffing all the supplies in the backseat. Once we're in and headed away, the rain slows down, falls into a sprinkle and then stops.

"The weather has a brain and it's out to get us," Isabella says. "What did we ever do to it?"

"Don't you have any magic herb mixture that'll control the weather?"

"My magic, mister, only has an effect on the person who uses it, not on the outside world."

I ask her to call Victoria to let her know we're on our way. We have about five hours to finish before Renee's expected home.

On Wildwood, all forest on one side, river harbor on the other, a car is flipped on its hood off to the side of the road, wedged between two trees.

"That doesn't look good." I slow down, pulling to the side. No one's around. It seems we're the first at the scene.

Next to me I hear frantic movement before I'm even at a stop. Isabella is banging at the door, the window, her breath heavy and fast. "That's my mom's car! That's my mom. Let me out!"

She's in such a panic, she can't seem to find the door handle. And I can't swallow. I throw my door open and over on her side, I open hers. My hands hold her steady by her thighs before she tries to get out. She can't anyway, because her seatbelt's still on. She's struggling, and her brain seems to be malfunctioning.

"Isabella, Isabella!" She looks at me, her face already plastered with tears. "I'll go check on her. You stay here. Stay here. I'll be right back." I toss her my phone. "Call 9-1-1. Can you do that?"

She nods, her face growing paler by the second. Is she even breathing?

I sprint to the upturned car, my own mother's ash-gray face flashing through my mind. I shake it away and push forward. I'm biting the inside of my cheek and my heart is racing right along with my head.

_Don't be dead. Don't be dead. Please, don't be dead._

Almost lying on the ground, I peer through the window. Her mother's still strapped in her seat upside down, the side window is smashed and gone. Some of Renee's hair is pink. Blood is dripping from her head, and some is smeared over her arms. I place a finger under her nose and let out my own breath when I feel hers. I call her name quietly, just to see if she responds. She doesn't.

Isabella's weeping behind me. She hasn't listened to me; she's left the car.

I'm practically on top of her in an instant, blocking her from any view, my hands gripping her upper arms, my face on the side of hers, lips at her temple. "Don't look. Don't look."

"Let me go!"

"She's alive. She's breathing."

"Let me go! Let me see her!"

"No, please wait here." My hold on her arms tighten as I plead with everything I have for her to stay where she is. I can't let her see this. I know what it's like - how the image never, ever goes away.

"She's my mom, Edward. My mom!" She's sobbing, tears all over. "My _mom_!" And that last "mom" can barely be understood. That one syllable word comes out in a series of sobs.

I let go of her and she's gone.

I can't keep her from her mom.

Frozen in my spot, I have no clue how to protect Isabella from everything happening here. I'm in way over my head, drowning in this whirlpool of circumstance.

My jacket feels like it's choking me and I take it off, dropping it to the ground.

"Mom," I hear her sob out. She sounds so young, like a little girl. "Mom? Mommy?"

Snapping out of whatever trance I've been in, I turn to go to her.

"We have to get her out of here!" She's on her knees, on the soaked ground, reaching for her mother's face and pulling her hand back to her own face, and then reaching for her mother's hair, and pulling back again. And she's so frantic and I know how lost she is. I know this feeling too well. It's too close, and all of it is happening at once. Her mother; my mother. Isabella; Max, me.

"We can't move her." My hand is light on Isabella's shoulder, and I wonder if she even feels it. She's clawing at the earth now. "We'll wait for the ambulance. We could make it worse if we move her, okay?"

She nods, and I help her to her feet. There's blood mixed with dirt on her hands, and some blood on her face. I use my shirt to clean off her hands - better her mother's blood staining my clothes than Isabella's. The fingerprint spots on her cheek, I wipe with my fingers - it smears, and I use her tears to wipe it a little more. The mother's blood mixed with the daughter's tears - something rips inside of me when I do this, slits right open, and I feel my eyes fill up, too.

As I'm cleaning her up, she's trying to explain something to me. It's all stutters and gasping.

"The phone - she asked..." Her eyes flash down to her mother. "If she's breathing, and I... We have to tell her! The phone."

"Where is it? Do you have the phone?"

"I-I." She's looking all around, back up at the car, down at the ground. "I dropped it."

She refuses to move from the spot she's standing in, so I have to leave her to find my phone. Even with the overcast sky and the shadows of the trees, it's bright enough out to spot the phone on the ground by the car. Whoever was on the phone has hung up. I call Isabella's house - break the news to Charlie.

Is it luck that this happened on his off day? A day he planned on painting for his wife? Luck, so that he doesn't have to be the one moving his own wife, wheeling her on a stretcher to an ambulance he might drive?

The paramedics who aren't Charlie, and their sirens, are first to arrive, followed shortly by Charlie in his own car. If the scene unfolding in front of me - Renee being removed from the car, placed on a gurney, four hands moving roughly over her bones - is all slow motion to me, I can only imagine what it must be like for Isabella. I wonder if she's in her own silence. I know that silence.

I have an arm around her, but she isn't leaning on me. She's standing straight and staring, her arms wrapped around herself, holding her stomach. There are no more tears, although she quakes with aftershock sobs every so often.

Charlie peels her out from under my arm. It isn't easy for him, because my hold has grown strong on her.

"Thank you," he says. "I'll take it from here."

I look at Isabella, her expression blank. I'm not sure she hears him or anything else.

"Isabella will call you later."

It's too hard for me to leave her. "I could go with-"

My voice is drowned out by Charlie. "She has her family now. She'll call you later."

In my car I look over at the passenger seat, never emptier than right now. Both of my hands are on the steering wheel and I let my face fall, landing on the backs of them. I breathe that way for a while, trying to calm down; trying to fight back flashes of Isabella's mother intermixing with my own mother; trying not to see Isabella's face smeared with blood and tears; trying not to see her standing almost catatonic, holding her stomach; trying not to imagine Isabella going through the same thing Max and I have been through. I don't want her to know what we know.

By now the ambulance is gone and I'm alone, pulled over at the side of the road, an empty overturned car to my left that I refuse to look at as I lift my head, wipe my face and drive away.

At home I toss my blood-stained shirt in the trash, and I want to toss more things, throw them around. Destroy it all. And I understand Max and his smashing. I could do that right now. Smash the pool house to smithereens just as life smashes us to smithereens. How many times can we put ourselves back together? And each time we do it, are we patched up right? Or are some pieces left in the wrong places, or missing altogether, gone forever?

I want my mother right now. I want her to tell me what to do and to hold me in her arms like I'm a little kid, her little kid. I need her and I'm on the floor, a crumpled up mess.

This is me on the floor, and it_ can_ be me, but it can't be Isabella. It can't.

But how do I stop it?

How do I stop anything?

When Isabella calls me, it's two AM, and I bound out of bed - where I haven't been sleeping - to get my phone. Only silence when I answer.

"How's your mom?" And my question scares the hell out of me.

"She's hurt pretty bad. But she's going to be okay. She'll be okay."

"That's so great." I wipe sweat from my forehead, not even aware of it until it's on my hand. "How are you?" I'm pacing the whole length of the pool house.

"I'm… My dad's taking me home now. But he's going back to the hospital to stay with my mom. He won't leave her alone all night. He wants me to sleep."

"I'm coming over." I'm already dressing. I'll get there as fast as I can. Before I leave, I'm struck with a memory of my mother crying in her bedroom behind her closed door. It was three years ago, that first day I took my guitar, sat outside her door and played for her. After a few songs, I opened her door to peek in. The room was all shadows and she was sleeping.

I grab my guitar now without another thought, don't even bring the case.

Isabella told me she'd leave the door unlocked for me.

It's completely slipped my mind until I step into their house that we had plans to paint. All the front room furniture is shoved and stacked in the center of the room, covered with a huge green tarp.

"Isabella?"

"I'm in here." Her voice comes from inside the tarped dome.

I slide through the slit, crawl under a table, dragging my guitar behind me, and find Isabella on the couch, huddled and hugging her legs.

"There was nowhere to sit," she says, letting her legs go, stretching them out, and then pulling them under her in a cross-legged position to make room for me. She pats the cushion beside her. Hunched over I make it to her.

"I have someone I want you to meet." I hold my guitar toward her. "Isabella, this is Senna."

She touches the base of it. "Hello, we've met."

"No, she's met you, but you haven't met her yet."

I start playing, strum a few random chords, and then start the song. I haven't forgotten a thing in all these months of music abandonment. Isabella recognizes the song after just a few chords.

"_Let it Be_," she says.

"My mother's favorite." I keep playing as we talk.

"You're good."

"It's an easy song. Only four chords."

"You're good."

"Thanks." I smile at her. She's all green looking from the cast of the tarp.

"Sing."

I laugh, falter a little, and get back to it. "I don't sing. Just listen."

"But you can sing. You're physically able."

"Don't know the lyrics."

"Liar."

"You sing."

She stops her insisting then and leans her head back on the edge of the couch, exposing the arch of her throat, and finally just listens, eyes closed.

As I play my mother's favorite song to Isabella, I drift easily through memories. After that first time I played outside her door, the next time I heard her crying, I played inside the room, lights out, and over time, I gradually moved closer until I was on the floor by her bed, before making it onto the bed. Eventually all it would take to get her to stop crying would be me entering the room, guitar in hand, and she'd go for hers. Seated, facing each other on the bed, we played together, becoming shadows together, neither of us moving to switch on a light as the night grew on. She'd start a song and I'd follow, or I'd start one and she'd follow, and it would be all music and never any talking. Never me asking why she cried, never her offering answers. Finger-strumming in unison was all it was, mother and son together. And now, never again.

When I finish I take a breath, pulling out of my memories, and lean the guitar against the sofa. Isabella rests her head on my shoulder. I reach across to pat her face, which feels odd and awkward, so I caress with my fingers instead. We stay that way for so long that my body begins to itch with the need to move.

"I thought you didn't play anymore. Did you eat peaches?" I hear forced laughter in her question.

"I must've been waiting for the right time."

"Tonight was right?"

"Had a friend who needed cheering up."

"It was beautiful. You should play more often." Her voice sounds so scratchy and parched that I silently cuss myself out for not offering to get her a glass of water the second I arrived. I should've known the last person she'd be thinking about taking care of would be herself.

"What time is it?" she asks.

I check my watch. "It's too dark under here to read it and I left my phone in the car. I'll be right back." I crawl through the path leading out the dome, and go for a glass of water. It's after four and neither of us have slept.

Inching back through to Isabella with the full glass in front of me, I worm my way under furniture to the sofa.

She takes the glass, unsurprised I have it, as if I come with a glass of water attached at all times.

"Sorry there's no lemon in it."

After she downs half the glass, she hands it to me. "Drink."

I finish off the water. "Have you eaten anything?"

"Not hungry."

I understand this, and ask her to try to get some sleep. "I'll stay here," I tell her.

Her body is turned toward me, one leg bent and resting on the cushion, her arm over the couch back, her finger picking at fabric. Her eyes are cast down. "They say it was black ice. Her tires slipped or something. She has a broken leg, fractured in three places. There's a bandage around her head from a gash wound, and one around her hand where glass was embedded into her skin. But she'll recover. She'll be good as new, the doctor said. Her seatbelt saved her. That's it. A strap across her body."

I bring my arm around her, and she straightens herself on the sofa as I squeeze her into my side.

"Edward?" She looks up at me, and even in the darkness under our dome, I can see her eyes shine with tears. "I'm sorry I never asked you about your mom. I never know how to bring her up, never want to unintentionally upset you or anything. But I don't know how you got through it. I mean, just the thought of losing my mother..."

"I haven't." My thumb rubs her shoulder to let her know I'm here for her comfort, not looking for my own. "I never got through it. I miss my mom every day. But I'll tell you about her another time."

As the night or the morning grows later or earlier, Isabella's head gradually sinks down my chest to my lap, her legs curled up behind her. I stroke her hair, smooth it behind her ear, and down her shoulders. I stay awake while she sleeps, making sure she has comfort even in her dreams.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you for reading.

I think this chapter lives up to its title.


	13. Soil

.

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Soil**

**Edward**

The sun's up by the time I crashland on my bed, guitar still in hand - I don't even take off my jacket or shoes. Isabella insisted that I go home to sleep, that she'd be okay as she got ready to visit her mother. She said she'd let me know if she needs anything. Outside, the wind rolling up from the river was practically blowing me over. In my body's state, air was the stronger one.

Exhausted, phone next to my head to be sure I wake up if she calls, I fall asleep fast, Isabella behind my closed eyes, and in every vessel of my brain. But it's my mother's voice I wake up to, and it's my tears I push off with my pillow.

_Edward, it hurts_, she said, and her mouth turned to ash.

I shouldn't be surprised by this, on this day of all days, but every time this happens, it always comes unexpected.

I'm sweating in my jacket, soaked, and I tear it off.

It's now late afternoon. When I try to call Isabella there's no answer. I leave a voicemail and don't call again, even though my fingers throb to dial her number by the time evening circles around and I still haven't heard from her.

But I give her space.

Still, Isabella is in everything I do. She's with me when I hang out with Max in the main house. She's with me as we eat dinner without our father and Esme. And she's with me, and part of the reason why, I invite Jane to eat with us.

Jane throws her gray head back, laughs a high pitched laugh, and squeezes my shoulder. "Oh, you."

"Really," I say. "You cooked it. You should eat with us."

She kisses my cheek, something she's never done - a little shocked by it all, my hand kind of covers my face where she kissed me.

Across from me Max is hardly trying to suppress his laugh.

Jane tells me it's a "lovely invitation" but that she has to finish up her work so she can get home to her husband.

"You've turned out a fine young man," she tells me. "You, too," she says to Max.

.

Hours after the sun goes down, after I've gone for two runs, and as I'm through showering, yanking back my bed comforter, there's a knock on my door. It's her knock. Isabella's. I recognize it by now, the light rap-rap-rap. Three times, that's it. Every time.

Holding the door open, I wave a welcoming arm.

She hesitates.

She looks tired, eyes red rimmed, but no tears, which allows me to breathe easier. Her hair is pulled up and back, and she's in jeans, a jacket buttoned up. It's freezing out there, and standing in only my boxers, I shift a little bit on my feet, hankering to get the door closed.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"Don't you wonder why I'm here so late?"

"I sort of figured you'd tell me once you came in."

She steps past me and I close the door, then move for some pants and pull them on. "Is everything okay?"

Taking off her coat - regular, snug T-shirt underneath - she drops it on the couch, and comes over to me, standing between the dresser and the bed. "Does anyone ever hug you?"

"What?"

"Your father?" She shakes her head.

Come to think of it, I don't ever remember a hug from him. He patted my back at my mom's funeral. Other than that, does he ever even touch me or Max?

"And Esme?" Another head shake from her. "What about Jasper?"

"We hardly talk anymore, and we've never hugged." I start to ask why, but she's already reaching up and around my neck.

I lower myself into her and wrap my arms around her back. She's so small in my arms. I knew she was small, but not this small. I think if I squeeze too hard, I could squeeze the life right out of her. And at the same time she feels like something that could drift away too easily, so I hold her close and tight, and there's this sigh that comes from me. And why haven't I felt this before?

We stand there hugging for - who knows? Minutes? Hours? Our hold on each other loosens up after a while, my hands dropping to the bottom of her waist, her arms dropping but still holding on to my shoulders, the side of her face against my bare chest, tears on my skin.

"Are you okay?"

"My mom's coming home tomorrow." She sniffs.

"That's good."

"I know. It's good. It is good. That's the point." Her voice is all nasal and I want to offer her a tissue, but don't want to let her go.

"What point?"

"Even when it turns out my mom's okay, I need a hug. I thought you could _really_ use one."

Her arms once again tighten around my neck. I lift her up, her legs dangling, and bring her around to the bed. I don't ask if that's where she wants to be. I figure if she doesn't she'll say something. We lie together, still hugging. And she couldn't be more right. I need this. And I tell her that.

"I do need it."

I rub her back, and then up to her shoulder, along her arm that curves around my neck, return to her shoulder and down her back again. Her shirt has lifted somewhere along the line and when my hand rests again on her lower back, I meet skin, and this is where I stay.

She squeezes and I have this feeling in my stomach I've never felt before - it's a swelling, knotting, tightening burn and like choking back tears.

She speaks, her voice muffled by my neck and shoulder, and I feel that burn get hotter, like a struck match, at nothing but the sound of her voice.

She's lit me up.

"Can you tell me something about your mom, now? What does she have to do with you not playing the guitar?" Our arms still around each other, one of her legs finds its way in between mine.

I swallow some kind of lump. My voice almost croaks when I try to answer, and I clear my throat.

"She's the one who taught me to play. She taught me everything I know about the guitar. I remember the summer when I was fourteen, sitting out by the pool at night and just learning the chords with her. She had so much patience. I didn't." I kind of laugh, remembering how frustrated I used to get, how I visualized throwing the guitar into the pool when I couldn't play the song as well as she could.

"Mmm, that's a nice memory."

"It is," I say, although I hadn't thought of it that way until she said it. It was always a depressing memory to me, but that's only because all memories of my mother depress me. The memory itself is a very good one. This is how it is with Isabella. She makes me see things all new and different.

She adjusts herself next to me, her face rubbing on top of mine and my eyes close again. Dropping my face to her shoulder I turn my head and I'm facing her neck. A little closer and my lips are touching her skin. There's that smell of lavender in her hair, but close like this there's another smell, a scent that is all her, the kind that can't be described because there's no other scent like it anywhere. A little peppery is the best I can do. It's the smell that comes from the inside out. I don't kiss, don't press. That isn't what this night is about. But when she inches around, getting herself more comfortable, her neck pushes against my lips and it's almost like her skin is kissing me.

I don't move. Not an inch.

I inhale Isabella.

She's inside me. Deep inside.

That's her knotted in my stomach, twisting up, turning around, wanting to be everywhere.

And she is everywhere, in every part of my body.

My bones.

A fire started.

I won't forget this.

Feeling a little guilty with the stiffening in my pants that's going on, I hope she can't feel it, but I think she must with how close we are. Her thigh is right against me and I have to concentrate on not accidentally grinding on her leg. She adjusts her body and a breath escapes my throat that is too close to a groan. I won't let go of her, though. She'll have to be the first to let go.

"Do you ever feel like you're falling, falling, falling, like there's nowhere to land, it's all endless, and you'll just keep falling forever?"

"Yeah," I say. "I do." My lips move against her skin as I say it and I can't help it this time. I do press a little bit.

"Me, too." It's only a whisper and I wonder if she's feeling it now, that falling. "I felt it earlier, ever since I recognized my mom's car. But not right now. Not anymore."

"Me neither."

We lie here so long, we fall asleep. In the morning, she sits up first.

"I'm sorry." She's rubbing her neck like it hurts. And then, wincing, she pulls her ponytail out and shakes a hand through her hair.

"It's okay." I reach for her, want her back.

"I fell asleep. I'm sorry."

My hand falls empty back to the bed. "It's okay. We both fell asleep."

"Don't tell anyone."

My eyes are tired and my voice is groggy, like night, while she looks and sounds like the day. "Who would I tell?"

"I don't know."

I'm curious about why it would even matter. She's spent the night here before.

"I don't want gossip to spread. Before you know it I'll hear that my own mom was drinking and driving or something."

Now I get it: she doesn't want me to say anything about the accident.

"Nobody'll hear a thing from me, and I'll tell James and Victoria not to say anything either."

Isabella readies herself to leave and I sit up. I don't want her to go. I want to hug some more. All night long wasn't enough. I should've stayed awake.

She's grabbing her coat off the couch. "I have to go get ready for school. I'll probably be late as it is."

She's at my door, but before she opens it, I turn her toward me. I reach for her face, my fingers rounding through her hair, over her ear, and then my palm landing on her jaw, I start to move in closer.

She averts her eyes and I see in them a sheen that threatens tears. She's about to cry. I don't know what this means. Will she cry for herself? For her mom? For me? Because she knows I'm about to kiss her? I don't have the answer.

A silent sort of half sob, half gasp comes from her and I change direction, leave the path leading toward her lips and lift up to her forehead. I press a kiss against her like a stamp, like a brand; it's a heavy kiss. Her breath is at my throat. My lips still against her head, I let out a sigh through my nose, the frustration of both my want and my need to kiss her lips more than anything else. Then I lower my forehead to hers, resting. "What's wrong?"

She moves away a little so her eyes can meet mine comfortably. "I-I want…" She looks away, and I really wish she'd tell me what she's thinking.

"What do you want? I'll give you anything." My throat closes up as I say it, and I know I sound unsure and nervous, but I _am_ sure, and I'm trying so hard to make it clear to her that if she wants me, she has me. I'm hers. Right here. Right now.

Take it.

"Edward, I - I don't know why…"

I wait for words that never come.

"I can't do this, Isabella. I can't-"

"I'll see you later, at school?"

I sigh and nod. She leaves.

When the door is closed I rest my head against it. "I can't just be friends with you."

Why did she do that? Why did she cut me off? She must feel what's going on between us. You don't spend a whole night hugging someone who's just a friend. I mean, do you? Do girls do that? Is it all me? If she had been anyone else last night, any other girl, that hug would've been quick, maybe a back pat, and if some other girl had held onto me as tightly as Isabella had, I would've wriggled free; I'd have been suffocated.

But even if it's one sided, even if it's all from me, she has to feel it happening. She was trying to tell me something, though, there's no doubt about that. And she cut me off - knowingly cut me off. She does know what's going on between us, but does she want to deny it?

I sit in the loneliness that she's left behind - the absence of Bella, my arms that were full of her minutes ago - and I know I'm going to have to tell her how I feel. And I'm not sure I have the words to say it. I don't know how.

She has me more afraid than ever before. There's something in me on the line here that I don't want to shatter.

I lie back on the bed, smell the lavender scent she's left on top of my comforter like a parting gift, like a hotel pillow mint, and with my eyes closed, it's like she's still here. Without thinking, I reach into my pants. Her arms around me, her breath on my neck, my lips on her. I'm pulling on myself, stroking. My hand is Isabella's. Bella. Her name leaves my lips, joins me in the room.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

I like her long straight brown hair and her highlights. I like her voice and her smile and her chipped fingernails. I like the way she sometimes touches my arm or my wrist when she talks to me. I like that she doesn't seem to care about what the others say about me. Still, I can't let my guard fall completely away. I keep waiting for her to discover something in me she doesn't like, that makes her swing that straight brown hair around, slapping me right in the face. And I know this fear is because of Lauren, so I try to shred those thoughts up until they become the kind that can be called fleeting.

I haven't yet told her about what's been going on with James and me.

I haven't yet told her all about my mom.

I definitely won't ever tell her about Mud. I can't.

She's been coming over after school, giving me rides home in her big truck. I feel so tall sitting in that thing - huge - and I look over at Isabella, and I think this is how she feels all the time. How can I get this big, tall, truck feeling to stick with me once I climb out, as it seems to stick with her? Seems to _be_ her.

Today, though, Isabella sinks against my bed like she's being deflated of that feeling. It's leaving her like air leaves a popped tire, pouring out of her like water from a hose. She's not tall or huge, she's really very tiny. My pillows could cover her up and she'd disappear.

"What is wrong with Edward? Why won't he kiss me? I know he was about to this morning. I _know_ it. But he didn't. I've heard enough about him; he isn't some prude or anything. Is it me? What is it?"

She talks about Edward a lot. I don't even think she realizes how much she talks about him, but this is the first time she's said anything close to this. For a moment I wonder about James. Did he try anything with Isabella? Was he rejected? Did he give up on her before anything began? And this crazy part of me is a little angry at Isabella for not even giving James a chance, a thought. I let that absurdity flee, too.

"I don't know."

"His lips were so close, Victoria. So close. I mean, I couldn't even look at him. I almost started crying like some needy reject, thinking finally. Finally he's going to kiss me. And then he just… didn't." She flips onto her stomach, smooshing her face into a pillow.

Standing by my desk, I'm looking down at her. "Maybe he doesn't know you want him to kiss you."

She shifts her head to the side. "Why would something like that stop him? Alice and Rose told me about him, and some people even warned me about hanging out with him." She rolls onto her back, bringing the pillow with her, holding it close to her chest. "Like, I was thinking from the very beginning he might just try to screw me. But never, not once, not one thing. And this morning, he was going to say something and I got scared it would be something I don't want to hear, you know, because he decided not to kiss me. So I stopped him. But what if he was going to say exactly what I want to hear? And I stopped him." She lets go of the pillow, covers her face with both hands, and groans.

I don't know what to say. Is it my place to tell her that Edward's head over heels about her?

"Are the rumors true? All the girls. Are they true?" She peeks through fingers.

"I don't know which ones are true or not. Last year he dated mostly senior girls, so they're not around anymore. I don't know who he's been with from our class. Girls lie about it and he doesn't really do the PDA thing, not at school anyway. He's like the opposite of Jasper in that way. And I heard about girls from other towns, but I don't know. We never talk about that. And that person - those rumors I've heard - they seem like someone else. Not Edward."

"Yeah, you're right. Sounds like someone else. Maybe he's a virgin." She laughs, turning onto her side, resting her head on her hand. "I love your bed. Let's trade."

"Yours is bigger." I take a pillow and clunk her over the head with it. She catches it and doesn't let go.

"Yours is perfect." She turns to her back again, staring upwards for a little while, toying with the ends of her hair, maybe thinking. Her gaze is so fixated I think maybe she can see straight through the ceiling to the sky. I look up.

"Do you think he's trying to figure it out? Like he can't decide?"

"I know he likes you."

She looks at me. "Well, maybe he does like me, but maybe deep down, I'm not really his type or something. What's his type?" She sits up.

"I don't know." I sit beside her. "But if I had to guess, I'd say probably you. Exactly you."

"He has a great way of showing it."

.

Around noon on Saturday, Isabella's dad and I are rolling blue paint on their living room walls. It squishes on sticky and thick.

Isabella has taken a break to bring lunch to her mom, who's upstairs in bed, still recuperating from her accident injuries.

When Isabella told me earlier in the week that it would be just her and me painting, no Edward, I couldn't help but wonder why. I came to my own conclusion that he still hadn't made a move on her, and that maybe she was frustrated or hurt by it - feeling rejected, maybe? Unwanted? Maybe she was leaving everything in his court, waiting for him to come around her.

I didn't see that happening, though. Instead, during lunch at school all week I saw them shrink away from goofing around and picking on each other to the point of almost ignoring.

I'd caught Edward staring at Isabella enough times, though, that it was starting to frustrate_ me_ that he wasn't doing anything about this.

I went to his house that night.

I followed the path of the garden lights to his pool house, nestled in a curve of trees, and knocked. He answered the door with a look of surprise on his face, but said, "Hey," as if he was expecting me. He looked dirty, like he hadn't showered in a week, his hair greasy-like, but then I realized it was all sweat.

"Just got back from a run," he said.

Inside, one look around showed me this place suited the Edward I know more than that giant, formal mansion on the other side of the pool. Pretty much the opposite of my house, with its chocolate walls and light furniture, the pool house was all light walls and dark furniture.

His small kitchen was nicer and more up to date than my aunt Cheri's, his refrigerator stainless steel.

I took a seat on his sofa while he reached into that refrigerator for a couple of Cokes and came over to hand one to me.

"My mom was twenty-four when she got pregnant with me," I said, taking the Coke. "And she's never been married."

He side eyed me.

"My aunt and uncle met and started dating when they were in their thirties."

"Okay."

"Did your parents meet in high school?"

"College. Why?"

"So, the chances of us finding a one and only, ever, not to mention in high school, are pretty slim. Don't you think?"

"Probably."

"So, like, if James and I were to get together anyway, we'd probably end up breaking up and maybe hating each other. It's probably better that we never date. It's better this way. Right?"

He rubbed his eyes like he was trying to rid his face of them. "I have no clue about this kind of stuff. Talking about it makes me want to climb out of my skin."

"_Or_..." I sipped my Coke, ignoring his last statement "...maybe a lot of the time people miss their opportunities. The real thing. Some people."

"You're talking about you and James?" He looked totally confused, and like he really did want to be relieved of his skin.

Reaching out, I grasped his arm because my answer might make his anxiety, or whatever this was, worse.

"Maybe. Maybe it's about you and Isabella."

"What?" He plopped himself down hard into the chair next to the sofa and leaned forward, arms resting on his knees. "Victoria, do you speak English?"

I laughed. "Listen. Sometimes I feel like I know where I want to go, you know? But I'm on this wrong road. And it's like I was put here on this wrong road, like I have no control over it."

"You're not on the wrong road."

"No._ You're_ not." I looked him in the eye and held his gaze until I knew he got it.

"Okay," he said.

"You believe me?"

"Yeah, I mean I was planning on asking her out or telling her. Somehow."

"You have to stop planning, and do it. Man up, man."

Covering his eyes he let out some sort of chuckle, and it sounded like he was trying to end the conversation. Like that's it. That's something James does, too.

"You feel like crawling out of your skin? Well, she's already on her way out of hers. Because of you and your..." I circled a finger in the air "...guy-ness. Because you haven't made your move."

"Really?" His eyes actually lit up. There was only one lamp on in the whole pool house, and still the change in his eyes couldn't be missed.

Charlie's voice snatches me from my memories. I'm back in the Swan's living room, arm cramping from the repetitive up and down motion. "Last time I painted a wall," he's saying from the opposite corner of the room, on the other side of the tent of piled furniture, "I painted it with my body."

My rolling pauses and I look over at him to see if he's smiling or joking. He's facing me, his_ Old Guys Rule_ T-shirt spotted with paint down the front. Bending down to add more paint to his roller, he disappears from my line of vision.

"It was an art course in college. First we were instructed to roll in the paint colors and then paint the wall with our bodies. No brushes allowed."

I laugh at the idea of this - a bunch of college kids rolling around in paint.

"Lots of wine involved, too."

"Your instructor drank with you?"

"Hell yes, this was the eighties, and an art school, at that."

He has not once paused his painting, and I realize my arm is still raised and I'm leaning my weight into my roller against the wall. When I remove my roller, it sticks, leaving an ugly line. I do my best to roll it out in the "V" shapes that Charlie taught me to do.

"You're an artist?"

"Was. Turns out that starving artist theory everyone's always going on about is actually true. Had a family to support. Had to grow up."

I take this opportunity of his somewhat opening up to ask him what he knows about my mom. This may invite questions from him, but it's a chance I take.

Attempting to appear nonchalant when I ask him how he knows my mom, I capture more paint on my roller, rolling it through the pan and up the edge to get the excess off. No drips allowed. Maybe I'm fooling him, but if he could hear my heart, all bravado would be betrayed.

"She was younger than me but she was, she was everywhere. I think everyone knew her. She was one of those larger than life people."

"What do you mean?" I ask this even though I do have some idea of what he means, remembering my mom's wide smile, the way she danced me around the living room, her loud laughter. Not caring about that chip in her tooth. Maybe that flaw even made her prettier.

"It was like she was bigger than the world. Definitely bigger than Forks. I wasn't surprised when I found out she left."

"Did she have a boyfriend?"

"A couple."

"Two?"

"A few."

"Three?"

"About that many. At least that many."

"Do you know why she left?"

"Only that she was always talking about getting out. I knew she'd leave someday."

"I think she left because she was pregnant. Everyone thinks she got pregnant with me after she moved, even my aunt and uncle, but she was already pregnant when she left."

He stops rolling and looks over at me, a frown on his face like a question, or disbelief. Was he still around when she left? How close were they? Would he expect her to share something like this with him? A pregnancy?

"How do you know that? Did she tell you?"

"No. I just know."

He laughs. "You answer questions the way Izzy-B does."

For a while the only noise is the continued squish sound of rollers on walls. Isabella must have told him something about my mother because he doesn't ask me why she's not around. Maybe he's just polite. But then Charlie says he has a question for me and I brace myself.

"Answer me this," he says. "Should I be worried about this Edward boy?"

I'm about to tell him "No" when Isabella comes downstairs and says it for me.

"And stop your gossiping, Pops."

"How's your mom doing?" he asks.

"Restless and complainy." She squeezes her hand into vinyl gloves and picks up her edging brush to finish off the corners.

I roll paint again. We're nearly done now.

"We'll have to get her out tomorrow, Izzy-B, maybe for a drive. That'll be an entire weekend without your boy. Will you survive?"

"He's not my boy." I can hear the smile in her answer.

"What did you just do!" Charlie's shout snaps my attention to him. He's tugging on the shoulder of his shirt and trying to look behind him in a way that eyes just don't go.

Isabella had put a blue paint finger slash through the word "old" on his shirt.

"It was a misrepresentation." She shrugs.

"It was funny," he says.

"Now it's funnier."

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading. :)<p> 


	14. Rubble

**In the Debris**

**Rubble**

**Victoria**

Water sprays over me like hot spitting rain, and soaping, scrubbing, even picking, I can't wash out all the paint that splattered strands of my hair, or the splotches on some of my fingertips. All prune-wrinkled and red-skinned with trying, I give up.

Dry, dressed, and wrapping an elastic band around my hair, I head downstairs to find my aunt preparing dinner. She has an onion sitting next to a knife on a cutting board, so I start chopping.

"Sliced or diced?" I ask. She tells me diced.

I don't ask if Mud will be here for dinner. I'll be staying regardless, and I'd rather not know ahead of time.

"Only half the onion. Not too much. Save the rest."

I drizzle the onion bits over the sauce she has simmering on the stove.

"Charlie really seemed to like my mom." I study her expression to see if she reacts to Charlie's name. She doesn't.

"Lots of people liked her." She hands me a garlic clove and I start peeling it.

"Do you think Charlie was ever her boyfriend?"

"Oh, I don't know. She didn't really go the boyfriend route." She stirs figure eights in her sauce, seeming mesmerized by it. "She was, well she was-"

"A slut?"

"Free. She didn't like ties."

I catch the glance she sends my way, the one that attempts to suggest I was not one of those ties. Too late. I'd already thought of myself as a complicated knot my mom untied a long time ago.

"She didn't have any boyfriends? Not one?"

"Well, I can't say that. Your mom and me, we're six years apart. I was away at college by the time she started getting interested in boys, so there may have been some I've never met. But I came home for visits often enough, and there was never the same guy on her arm."

"What about after college?" I toss the chopped garlic in as she stirs.

"I was in Seattle, you know that."

"But you were close, didn't you come around?"

"I was starting my nursing career. I got caught up in that. I didn't really come back here until well after your mom disappeared, when our mother got sick." I knew this is why she came back to Forks, to help her mother. Her diabetes. She couldn't handle it on her own. Aunt Cheri met Uncle Phil shortly after.

"You really don't know anything about her friends and stuff?"

"I know she hung out with an older crowd. I don't think she had any friends her own age. And it drove our mother crazy. She was up in arms over Char. Always in trouble, grounded, but she'd sneak out so it never mattered to her. Consequences just didn't matter. My mom was always calling me, worried and complaining. I told her... I told her not to worry. She's just being a teen. I told her not to worry." Her hands start shaking a little, and that paired with her repetitiveness makes me uncomfortable, makes me want to end the conversation. And then it gets worse, her voice coming out strangled as if bound by wire. "But I would call Char, and I'd tell her to please follow Mom's rules. She never listened to anyone. She told me that if I couldn't be supportive of her the way a sister should be, and if I was going to keep treating her like a child, to stop calling her."

She shakes her head and seems to snap herself out of something. "Oh, she did mature eventually, or so we all thought. Got a job down at the pastry shop near the harbor." She tastes the sauce, then sets the spoon on the spoon rest. She lowers the heat on the stove before taking me by the arms. "Why the questions?"

I look into her eyes, eyes just like my mom's only I know these better. There are creases in the corners deepening with worry. I'm heating up, sweating, as I weigh whether or not to give her the truth or a lie. I sweat harder, perspiration pooling under my hair, and know my decision's made.

I lie.

"Just because Charlie said he knew her. I got curious."

"I'll tell you one thing. At your age, your mom wouldn't have stayed home on a Saturday night after a full day of painting to help our mother with dinner. Especially not without being asked." There's no strain in her voice now, as if that wire had been unwinding bit by bit until releasing completely, springing away, disappearing, all replaced by pride. She's proud of me, and of what she's provided for me, taught me, I suppose. She takes my face into her hands the way she does and looks into my eyes. "I appreciate who you are."

This makes me smile and feel as close to her as ever. She could be my mom. She_ should_ be my mom. And just so I don't unwittingly offer her any more information, so that I don't tell her that I'm planning on looking for my father, I retreat up to my room, leaving her to finish dinner.

Her comment, though, as much as it made me feel good, it made me question things, too. Like, who exactly am I? Who do I come from? Whose DNA is inside me, and what traits do I have that mirror my natural father's?

Who would I be now if I had known him? If I had been raised by him? Maybe, if he knew about me, he would've wanted me. If I'm so good, like my aunt is always telling me, that good must come from someone in my parentage, and if not my mom, then...

I switch the desk lamp on, and under lemony light, slip my worn leather photo album from a drawer, the album I have from my youngest years living in Arizona, the only pictures I have of my mother and me, and I turn to the page, take out the picture.

It's my mother in a sundress squinty-smiling so pretty. And even though her hand is on her stomach there's nothing there to indicate a pregnancy, no accentuated curve of the belly. It's what's written on the back of the photo in my mom's slanted handwriting that is my only clue - the only clue I need.

_First day in Phoenix_

And the date: _March 16, 1993_

She was already two months pregnant when she arrived in Phoenix, and before I told Charlie today, nobody knew this but me.

I had no reason to tell anyone, had no active desire to find my father.

Sure, I'd dreamed of him finding me, of him loving me with a smile you could travel miles in. But I understood that wasn't real; my mother had informed my aunt that whoever my father was, he was some Arizonian loser.

But my mom's nothing but a liar. And maybe my dad isn't what she said he is. Maybe my dad is someone like Charlie.

And this is the hope I cling to.

I write a poem on the backside of the photo, under my mother's handwriting.

I underline the old date she'd written from nearly nineteen years ago.

Because that date is the title.

Small and smaller and tiny, all the way to the bottom of the photo back, and then curving up the side and over the top, upside down, I write:

_You did not abandon me when you colored your insides in white_

_When you couldn't stop from adding coat after coat_

_Day after day._

_Not then._

_You did not abandon me when you strayed outside the lines, lines bleeding_

_Lacquering me in white, too._

_Not then. Not then._

_It was already done._

_March of 1993, pink and fresh inside, you left home_

_Me trapped in your belly_

_Trapped my whole life without a father._

_That's when._

_Without a father to turn to_

_To run to, to know._

_You left my heart beating a mere shade of what it might have been._

_And now._

_And now I'm unwhole_

_Scarred with white._

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

Saturday night is hazy dark, no moon, no stars. Porsche wheels spinning toward Port Angeles, bursting through random fog clouds, this is a mission, sort of reminding me of old days with Jasper. Only we're not out to troll girls.

James called me earlier saying he knew where to find him.

"Who?" I was ducking from rain on my way to the main house.

"That French guy. He's in Port Angeles. Are you in?"

"What's your plan?"

"I'm kicking his ass, taking him on alone. Tonight. All I need is a driver."

"I'm in."

"We'll need your fastest car."

James directs me through the old, rundown section of town, to some dive. We roll into the back lot - several other cars are parked all around, although the lot isn't full. Most of the streetlights are burnt out and my headlights are off. It's almost black. We keep our eyes trained on the heavy looking door, thrown open every once in a while, but James makes no move.

"Turn up the heat," he says. "It's fucking cold."

I reach for the button. "Are you sure he'll be here?"

"My cousin says he wouldn't miss tonight. Too much money."

It turned out James' cousin knew Laurent, without actually knowing his name - he goes by several different ones, apparently. For all we know, Laurent is merely another one of his aliases.

It's nearing two by the time James spots him.

"There," he says, pointing him out. The guy who must be Laurent is facing the ground, hands stuffed in pockets, kind of staggering along - dark skin, head capped in a Yankees hat. There are two other guys tailing him. James is already out of the car.

I follow.

"Hey! You Laurent?" He cuts over to him, way ahead of me. I speed up my walking, don't dare jog - no need to bring attention to myself or exhibit any unintended kind of threat.

From under the faint stream of a street light, filtered by fog, Laurent looks up as we're approaching, his response slow as if he's trying to decide whether or not we're really there. "Who wants to know?"

We're moving in closer, and Laurent is stock-still, his eyes barely open, and he's got a clueless smile on his face. He's high.

"James, that's who. You make a habit of drugging up high school girls, asshole?" He's still moving forward, moving in on Laurent fast.

"Who the fuck are you?" The smile's gone.

"I'm James." He clocks Laurent in the face, shocking him enough to get a few more punches in before Laurent starts fighting back.

Some shaved head guy next to me starts to get in on it. I put my hand on the guy's chest. I know how to do it, not too rough, so he doesn't feel threatened by me. A splayed hand, just fingertips. It's still a risk. "This is between them. Let's keep it that way. Fair fight." I give him a single nod, lock my eyes on his.

He glares at me and his mouth twitches, but he stays where he is. Could be that he trusts I'm no threat, or it could be because I'm taller. Either way, I withdraw my hand.

James is really going at it. Laurent's on the ground; he's not a big guy, and he's cowering now, no longer fighting back. There's only a matter of time before someone jumps in to help him out, and James looks nowhere near stopping. He looks like he doesn't even remember where he is.

I take a glance around. Bar patrons have started poking their nosy heads out the back door, and then exiting altogether, watching the free entertainment. I step up to pull James away, but someone else gets to him first. James lays one on him, and then about six guys are after him. He runs, passing me, holding a hand over his nose. "Go!"

The bald guy I staved off earlier takes a swing at me, but I'm already off and he misses.

We're both running for the car.

Doors slamming, engine revving, pedal pressed flat, my tires screech out of the parking lot. James is laughing like mad.

"Those guys were so wasted. We could've taken them all. Fucking Frenchie could barely land a thing." He says this as he wipes blood from his nose.

I let a laugh out through the corner of my mouth.

As if he's forgotten all about having been cold before, he rolls his window down and the wind slaps strong.

I thought about what happened, how James would probably still be going at it if I and the other guys hadn't stepped forward. And maybe it's because of what Victoria said to me, or maybe it's because of Isabella, or maybe it's just me, but I know what's up.

"What you did back there," I say. "That was for no friend."

"I did it for Victoria. You should've seen her the next morning, Cullen. You didn't see her."

"No, I know. That's what I mean. It wasn't for a friend."

I feel his stare on me. I'm looking straight ahead. Hooking a finger into the neck of my shirt, I tug it out, away from me. It's a crewneck, and no way can it be choking me, but it sure as hell feels like it.

"She doesn't need someone like me."

"What does she need?"

"Not me. Not the way I am. She's been dragged through enough."

"You don't have to be that way. You don't have to sell." I'm stopped at a red light, but I'm still staring ahead as if I can't take my eyes off the road. They're glued.

"You'd never get it. Not in a million years."

"Why? Because I have money? Fuck that. Be what you think she needs. Fuck, if you don't like who you are, that's on you, not her. Change it. Before it's too late. You say she's been through enough in her life? Do you know what it's like to want someone who you think doesn't want you?" I have more than an idea of what that's like, but I'm not going to explain it to him. And it's starting to really piss me off, thinking of all the shit Victoria's been put through because James couldn't fess up. So I just tell him what she told me. "You know, she says she's on the wrong road?"

"She told you that?"

"Yep. And I didn't know what she meant right away, you know how she talks. It's hard to follow sometimes. But I figured it out."

"She talks to you about this? About me?"

"Yep."

Silence again.

Light turns to green and I accelerate, four blocks from the highway.

"You ask her about it?" James asks and I look at him like the psycho he is.

"You're high. I couldn't get her to stop talking about it."

He folds his arms in front of him without a word.

"You gonna let her think she's on some wrong road? Is that what she needs?"

Nothing.

"What about when she finds someone else? Ever think about that?"

"I was hoping for that. Someone good for her."

"Who's good for her? You think you get to pick him out? You plan on sitting back, watching her with..."

I feel a little bit like I'm pep talking myself here, telling myself to step up. It's all too familiar.

I shoot a glance his way to see if I'm getting through because he's giving me no indication he's even listening anymore. His head is turned, looking out the window, his elbow on the door, head on his fist.

I give the conversation up.

Not twenty seconds later, reds and blues flash behind me, followed by a short, quick siren.

I throw another look at James. "You holding?"

"No."

"Are you holding? Tell me if you are."

"I said no, man. I knew what was going down tonight."

I pull over to the shoulder.

.

My car was impounded on our arrest. Esme picks us up at the Port Angeles police station, where we were thrown in a cold and colorless holding cell. She's wearing a waist-tied trench coat over her nightgown, and high heel shoes. She doesn't look at me or say a word to me until after she drops James off at his house.

I couldn't get a hold of Jasper; James couldn't get a hold of his cousin. After three on a Saturday night? They're both either passed out or with a girl. Regardless, how would they have paid our bail?

So I caved and called my father - had to leave a voice mail. I knew he'd find out anyway. Arrests make the paper, and the name Cullen wouldn't go unnoticed. It's probably better he finds out this way.

James thanks "Mrs. Cullen" for the ride like he's being dropped off after a game of bowling or something. It makes me laugh and Esme doesn't like this.

"It's one thing after another with you, isn't it? And this..."

I swallow. Looking over at her, I see her eyes blinking fast. She steers on to the forest road. "Esme, I didn't-"

"Save it for your father! He'll be meeting us at home."

"Why didn't he pick me up?" My voice is quiet and calm.

"He has patients,_ Edward_. That's a little more important than dealing with a derelict son, wouldn't you say?"

"Okay." My eyes burn and I hate it. I will not cry over my father. "Does Max know?"

"He's sleeping."

I drop my head, relieved. I don't want him to know that I was arrested - put in a holding cell.

"You're going to give your father a heart attack, do you know that?"

At home I stone-face myself, knowing I have to deal with my father. He's at the bar, the room dim, as always. My father has mastered the art of pouring drinks slowly. And he's usually just as slow bringing his glass to his lips - never over-eager in getting the alcohol into his system - with the exception of tonight. He takes a fast gulp and when he speaks he's quiet. Angry quiet.

"You are damned lucky they didn't press charges." His drink holding hand points at me. I hate when he does this, like I'm someone beneath him, or even someone beneath the booze he's chugging away at. "Although they should have. Some time in jail might knock some sense into that thick head of yours. Maybe I should refuse to pay for a lawyer. Let you handle this one on your own."

Avoiding his eyes, I sit on the sofa - I have to take this.

After another big gulp of his drink, his Adam's apple bobbing with his swallow, he continues. "Talked to the guys down at the station. I'm told the reason the guy you beat up didn't press charges is because he deals drugs. He's a known drug pusher. Known by the police, Edward!" His face is turning red.

"I didn't do anything."

"What's the matter with you, hanging around drug dealers? Do you have no pride at all? No brains?"

My arms are folded in front of me and I'm looking down.

"Do you need a drug test?"

My eyes meet his and his face is even redder and I'm reminded of the heart attack comment Esme made. It pisses me off that I'm concerned about his health right now. "No."

"What do I do with you? What do you suggest I do with you?"

I want to suggest he leave me alone, and I know after a while, he'll do just that, so I don't say anything - just wait it out.

"I'm seriously at a loss. You have no respect. None. And this is it. This is the final straw. What would your mother say? Are you doing her memory justice?"

I snap.

"We're talking about mom's memory, now? Who does her memory justice? Who even remembers her?"

"That's what it takes to get through to you. Your mother is the only way."

"Who even treated her right when she was alive?" I'm standing up now, and I'm just as tall as he is. He sets his drink down on the bar.

"Your mom wanted for nothing."

"Is that what you tell yourself? Because I remember her crying. In your room where she thought no one would know, she'd just cry. But I heard her through the door or the wall. And those were only the times I heard. I wonder how many other times she cried all by herself. Maybe what she needed was more than money."

"Why is it that you think she married me? You have no idea what she cried for. It wasn't all because of me. It was her own decisions. But go ahead. Make me the bad guy if that's what you have to do. That won't get you out of this. You need to rethink your choices or soon you won't have any."

"What are you going to do, lock me up?"

"In a sense, I might do just that."

"Go for it." I take off for the back door with him calling after for me not to leave, that we're not done here.

We're done here, I think, and don't turn back, until his next words drive through me.

"You're spending too much time with this Isabella. The paramedic's daughter."

He's got me. He's good. I turn around.

"Esme tells me she's at the pool house a lot."

I reach for the back of my neck. "Does it mean anything to you at all that Esme has to tell you this? That this isn't something you know on your own?"

"The pool house isn't yours. Need I remind you, I own it? My house, my rules. Isabella, and any other girl, stays out."

"Whatever you say, Carlisle."

Then I leave, and he seems to have given up on keeping me there, although he does shout after me, "Get yourself under control!"

In the pool house, I call Isabella. As much as I want to shower cell-grime off me, calling her is the first thing I do. It's after five and I know she's sleeping and won't answer. Her voicemail meets my ears, and I close my eyes needing her voice, as I wait for the beep.

"Hey, Bella. I was arrested tonight. It was nothing. No charges were pressed so all they kept us for was disturbing the peace. James and me. We'll probably end up with community service. It's worth it. You should've seen James. He kicked that guy Laurent's ass - the guy who dosed Victoria. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I just wanted to. Anyway, don't worry about me. I'm fine. Keep sleeping. Dream well."

When I hang up the phone, I laugh at myself. Why isn't there a way to delete a message after you leave one? All this technology and I can't do that.

I step into the shower.

After a couple of hours sleep, Isabella's ringtone wakes me up.

"Hey." My throat's dry and hurts a little, my voice hoarse.

"Are you okay? What happened with Laurent? Where's James?"

"Come over," I say, still sounding hoarse. Clearing my throat doesn't help.

"What's wrong with your voice? You sound like you've been eating rocks."

"I don't know. Come over."

"Does Max know? Where's Max?"

I smile. Why is she so fucking awesome? "He doesn't know. Are you coming over or not?"

"I can't right now. I'm doing a road trip with my parents for the day. It's a family thing. My mom's getting cabin fever."

"How about after? When will you be back? Come for dinner. We'll eat in the main house with Max."

She agrees to come over at seven, and tells me to drink bay leaf tea to help my throat.

Before she hangs up, she asks me one more time if I'm okay. I tell her I am.

I don't know where I'm going to get anything like bay leaf tea, so I just gargle warm salt water and go back to bed.

I do want my throat to get better though, can't get sick. Because I am going to kiss Isabella tonight. It's about damn time.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Thank you for reading, and thank you for the reviews, the recs, the tweets. I appreciate it all! :)

Also, thank you to Ireen H and Thimbles for critiquing several versions of Victoria's poem for me!


	15. Fragments

**In the Debris**

**Fragments**

**Victoria**

The wind is fighting me, whipping at my hair, beating against my coat. I barely feel it as I walk right from the driveway into James' house, thinking nothing of anything that's gone on between us: love, friendship, this distance I asked of him.

I find him in the living room.

"Arrested?" I yell the word. It wasn't James who told me. It was Isabella. This morning. And even before I ended the call, I was headed out the door, shouting back at my aunt that I was taking her car, listening for her okay.

Eyes wide with shock, he steps back, his calves hitting the sofa, his hair lifting and falling.

"Shh!" His finger jolts like a lightning bolt toward his mom's bedroom. His voice is quiet. "He didn't press charges." He takes my wrist, leading me to his room. "And he deserved it."

"What did you do?"

"I beat his ass into the ground. For you."

I shake my head fast. "Don't tell me for me. Don't tell me that. What if you had really gone to jail? What am I supposed to do with that? Beat up your porch like your mom did when your dad told her it was all for her?"

"I'm not him. It's not the same." He opens his desk and I roll my eyes.

"That's it?"

He shrugs.

"James."

"I'm lighting up, Victoria. You can join me or not, but I am." He begins rolling a joint and I open the window to let him know I'm staying.

His bed is unmade, he has clothes in piles on the floor, and I can't stand it. I start picking them up.

"Don't do that," he says before licking the paper. "I'll do it."

He takes a hit and passes, our fingers meeting on the exchange and a flutter circles my lower stomach. I can't look at him.

I take a hit. We're silent.

James starts scooping up his clothes and shoving them in the hamper. He straightens his comforter over the top of his bed, not bothering to smooth out the sheets first.

He takes another hit. Passes it back.

The wind seems to be bullying the trees outside. I move closer to the window, suddenly feeling hot. The sun isn't strong enough to strike through the clouds, and even as they float across the sky, they move thick and bundled together, keeping Forks tarped in gray. In these wordless minutes, the occasional howling wind our only disruption, I begin to wonder what James has been up to these few weeks without me, where he's been. Clearly, as today's news proves, he hasn't been sitting home helping his mom cook dinner. I look over at him lying on his back on the bed, arms behind his head, and wonder if he's been hanging out with Marcus, if he's been seeing the old crowd, the old girls. I face the window again, not wanting to find any answer that might be written in his face if I look deep enough, if I check the right place.

I listen to the wind, watch the trees.

"I didn't do it for you. Truth is, I did it for me. Fucker deserved some backlash for what he did to you. And I wanted to be the one to do it. It was for me."

I don't turn from the window. How many times have we climbed over this ledge just to get away? Alone. Together. His neighborhood is always quiet and slow. The first time we played our destination game, it was after a crawl through this window.

"If you could go anywhere after school the last day of school, where would you go?" he asked, looking straight out into the dark.

"Somewhere with you."

"Where would we go then?"

"We'd go to Seattle and become a part of the underground art world." I'd seen them plenty and I liked the way the artists dressed, the dreadlocked hair. I smiled, thinking of the beanie I'd wear, the knitted mittens, the backpack I'd carry filled with books and different colored pens, each one used for a different mood.

"Homeless?"

"Not homeless. Home-free." I jumped on his back and laughed at him when he stumbled. Skinny fourteen year old James was too determined to prove his strength, though. He wouldn't put me down. He ran in zigzags, trying to scare me. And it worked. I screamed. We fell over on someone's wet grass.

We were freer then, not really looking for escape, but just pretending. And neither of us were high.

I smile now, remembering, gazing outside, and with the way the branches sway wildly, I picture Laurent looking something like those branches, swaying with punches, and I start laughing. Maybe it's the high, or maybe it's the thought of Laurent getting his ass kicked by, essentially, a kid. It's probably both combined.

"What?" James sits up, a smile tugging at his lips.

"You kicked his ass?" I laugh. "I wish I'd seen it."

His smile wins followed by laughter that only grows as he tries to describe it, incoherent at first. "On the ground... arms taking cover... over his head... and when his fist shot out..." he laughs harder, and can't even talk.

"Tell me." I hit his shoulder with the inside of my wrist.

"It was like a cat or something... batting."

We laugh together, the kind of laughter that shakes your whole body but makes no sound, the kind you feel deep in your muscles like you've been doing sit-ups for days. I'm tugging on his upper arm trying to stop, trying to get him to stop. His laughter curbs first.

"He was too high. I don't think he could see straight. I hope he remembers, though." He wipes at his watery eyes.

"I don't. He'll probably remember getting his ass kicked, but I hope he doesn't remember it's you."

"Why not?"

"Think about it."

He shakes his head. "Don't worry. He had no idea who I was or how I knew him. None. No doubt he has more than a few enemies if he goes around dosing people."

"Can't he find out through the police station? I mean, at least he can find out your name easily enough."

He looks away and I'm seeing he hasn't really thought this through. If the arrest hadn't taken place, sure Laurent probably wouldn't have ever known who James was.

"Marc knows the dude. I'll have him talk to him, let him know that if anything happens, you'll make a complaint about him drugging you. This guy wants to keep as far out of police radar as he can. He's a joke. Not hardcore. If he was anywhere near hardcore, I'd never have gotten as far with him as I did last night."

"Maybe he knows people, though."

"Anyone he knows, Marcus knows better. I'll take care of it, Victoria. Don't worry about it."

And then it goes quiet and uncomfortable, and the wind blasting in through the window is too cold, and I can't look at him and I know it's time for me to go. If only we could always just be laughing and easy, then I could stay. But as soon as the dust settles, and there's a shadow of calm, the air between us grows heavy and reminds us both who we are.

"Hey," he says as I leave his room. "I'm glad you came over. Thanks."

James' mom catches me on my way out. She's clearly just out of the shower, damp-haired, her salmon bathrobe wrapped tight around her, skinny legs underneath, bare feet, rose-colored toes.

"Victoria, where have you been lately? We've been missing you at dinner. James has been quieter than ever without you around. It's hard to get anything more than a grunt out of him."

"I've been trying to spend more time at home."

"Well, don't be too much of a stranger. You bring something out in him. How is he? Does he seem happy to you?"

I drop my eyes, thinking of the answer. My hand comes to my chest as I understand that the answer is no, he isn't happy. I meet her gaze.

"He's not happy." I shake my head. "He's not."

She covers her mouth, the same gesture James does sometimes, and nods. "I'm working on it. Interviewing, but it's hard out there. Someone my age, the limited experience I have. You know?"

She reaches out to hug me. "Try to come around more often. You're a charm in his life. A beam of light." She pets my hair. "For both of us."

"I'll try."

There's too much black in the clouds and it's cold enough to snow. I don't head home. I drive myself down James' narrow street, lined with skeletal trees that, in the warmer months, canopy the road like a path of enchantment all the way to the forest where the native trees tower over everything. I continue on through town to the harbor, to the pastry shop where my mom worked when she wasn't much older than I am now. I park along the decked sidewalk, and stand in the freezing outside just peering into the shop. Hand in hand, a couple exits, the bell jingling, a little pink pastry box in the woman's free hand. They're smiling at each other, not noticing me at all, and I wonder how long they've been together - if their road to each other was long or short, curvy or straight. Were there bumps? Potholes? Road blocks?

Probably very few couples travel a straight, enchanted, tree-canopied road.

They duck into their car and I let them be, let them take their road in private.

The pastry shop is now empty except for one man behind the counter. I enter, the bell jingling again, the man looking up.

The scents of butter, baked apples, cinnamon and sugar, waft over me and my mouth waters.

"Afternoon," the man says, his voice sounding older than he looks from here. "I'll be right with you." He steps out of sight, into the back, and I realize I might have to actually act the part of a customer and buy something.

I've been in here plenty of times, but I've never looked at it quite the way I'm looking now. Three of the walls are mostly glass, allowing the shop to be lit up from the outside. The place is splattered with little intimate round tables and white iron-backed chairs. I run a finger along the cool surface of a table top. Did my mother wipe this very table down at one time? I move toward the pastry counters displaying beautiful cakes and pies, smaller round cakes that look more like art than food, and along the right side, donuts, all of it encased in glass so clean it sparkles. It gleams. Did my mother Windex this glass until it shone?

From the back, I hear the buzz of a timer, the squeak of a door opening, the rattling of a pan, and the man returns, wiping his hands off on his apron.

I stand up straight.

"What can I get for you?" He adjusts the chef hat on his head and picks up a small pad. He's a small, skinny guy with a hooked nose and an angled smile that looks more like an arrow than a curve. He has more noticeable wrinkles up close, his front teeth are crooked, and there's something about him I already love.

"Actually, um..." I step closer, finding it difficult to raise the level of my voice. "I might be looking for a job."

I have no idea why I say this. I'm absolutely not looking for a job, but the words are out, and I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea after all.

"That so? You got baking experience?"

"I know how to work an oven." My eyes dart across the counter, looking for ideas. "And probably a cash register. I can stir, knead, pour in ingredients. Follow a recipe."

"The fact that you know the word knead puts you ahead of the last teenager who worked for me." He laughs a "heh, heh, heh" sound. "I'm not really looking, is the thing. Why don't you leave me your name and phone number and I'll give you a call when business demands it."

I write my information down on a legal pad he hands my way. My hand shakes a little, and my handwriting is nowhere near as neat as it could be.

"Any references?" he asks.

"I've never worked before. But, the thing is, my reference, I mean. My mom used to work here."

I tell him her name and he brightens up, remembering, the bottom of his smile pointing to his chin.

"How long did she work here?"

He taps his pen against his lip, eyes pointed to the ceiling. "I'd say three years. A special lady. She worked hard. She worked Christmases for me, always saying she could use the money. She had these shoes, I kept telling her she couldn't wear them here, too high, a liability and you know what she said? She laughed like I was some old fool and said, 'I can't possibly spend my money on ugly shoes, I'm saving up.'" He laughed then, shaking his head, like my mother was the cutest thing. And it made me smile despite myself.

"She used to. You know what she used to do? At the end of the day, you see, there are pastries that won't last the night, so they get tossed out. She couldn't stand that. Nope. She took the extra pastries every evening after her shift and passed them around the local businesses. You know what that did? It brought me more customers. Heh, heh, heh." He has an amused spark in his eyes, the way they squint slightly, like his memory is so vivid he can see her as if she's standing in front of him. "Best decision I ever made, hiring her. Soon as I need someone, you're at the top of my list."

Interesting that the person my aunt describes is exactly the mother I've come to know, the kind of person who would put herself before her child, before her sick mother. But the person Charlie and the baker speak of is someone who piques my curiosity in a way I've never before been curious about my mom. The woman they talk about is a person I might want to know.

The door jingles as I hand him back his pad, thanking him.

"Victoria? Hi." It's a guy's voice and I turn to see Jasper with his arm around some pretty brunette. "Donut time for everyone, eh?" He tells the girl under his arm to go decide what she wants and strides over to me. "This doesn't count, right? We're not at school, and ignoring you everywhere wasn't part of the agreement." His smile is more of a smirk as he asks me what I've ordered. I explain that I'm just looking for a job. "Hire this one," he tells the man behind the counter as he points to the top of my head. The owner gives him a wave. Jasper turns back to me. "Want anything? My treat."

I decline and start to leave but he takes my shoulder. "Hey-" it's a whisper "-you ever want to come over again, you just let me know." He gives me a look as if he's just adorned me with compliments, and I feel like hitting him for basically propositioning me while he's with another girl, one whom he probably just had sex with last night. So I do hit him, but it's accompanied by a laugh because I know how he is. Everyone does. That pretty girl with her face in the glass looking for the perfect donut probably knows, too.

"Coffee," I hear the girl say as the bell jingles my exit. I step out from the shop's oven-warm embrace and comforting sweet scents into the brisk, crisp smell of snowfall.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

I'm waiting for seven to come around, bringing Isabella with it. This afternoon, James drove me into Port Angeles to pick up my impounded car. It cost me over a thousand dollars in towing and storing expenses. James tried to pay for it on top of the bail money he gave me to repay my father. I wouldn't let him pay for the release of my car.

On the road, he assured me he would be taking all the blame. He'd explain that I had nothing to do with anything - just being with the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time.

This isn't all true; I had _something_ to do with it. I wanted it to happen, and if it had come down to it, I would have fought. I told him he could use our lawyer. I know what my dad said, but I also know that his threats are like threatening to start a fire with a wet match. He always gives in by forgetting about it, or pretending to. If for some reason this time he does mean I'm on my own, I'll pay for the lawyer out of my own account. I have the money.

It took major pushing in order for James to accept my offer of our lawyer and I found myself sort of comparing James to Jasper. If this was Jasper, he'd demand my lawyer, and would he take all the blame? Maybe he would make the offer, maybe I wouldn't let him, maybe he'd count on that.

"He might get you off completely," I say. "Or get everything reduced to a fine. You have to go for it, man. Take me up on this, because if there's a record at stake here, even if a misdemeanor..."

He finally accepted.

"Just don't try to contradict what I say when I tell them it was all me," he says as if this is a condition for accepting my help. "Don't make me out to be a liar."

Now, with the Porsche tucked away in the garage next to the Volvo like it never left, the car completely unharmed and unchanged, I'm waiting in the pool house for Isabella when I get a text from her. She's in the main house and it's too big and Max is looking at her, and does he know what happened, and she doesn't know what to say or not say to him, and she needs my ass over there right now.

_Where are you?_ Her next text yells at me, seconds later.

I laugh and don't take the time to text back to explain that I thought she was coming over here first. I go to rescue her from Max's stare and the big scary house.

It isn't the first time she's been over there, but last time it was dark and full of drunk and drugged out people.

I find her near the bar with my father, who has a drink in his hand. Red wine.

"Home two nights in a row?" I haven't forgotten that he told me not to have Isabella over anymore, and I'm also thinking of how I can get away with changing the location of tonight's dinner. It takes me too long to notice that my father hasn't reacted.

"Where's Max?"

"I sent him to his room. I had some things to discuss with Isabella."

He and Isabella are staring each other down, neither blinking. I watch as Isabella's stare turns into a glare.

"E-Edward, I'm going to go. I-I'm not staying for dinner."

"What? Why?" I glance between her and my father, who's replaced his straight face with a near-smile. "What happened here? It couldn't have taken me three minutes to get here. What the hell did you say to her?"

My eyes turn back to Isabella, but she's gone. I call her name.

"Let her go, son."

"Don't call me son, Carlisle. What did you say to her?"

"I told her what she already knew. I put her in her place. She's not supposed to be here, thought I made that clear. You'll see I did you a favor in the long run. You're better than that."

"What the_ fuck_?" My heart drops as I imagine what my father said to her, Isabella's face, her own heart.

He sets his wine glass down on top of the bar. "You're not to speak to me that way."

"Did you tell_ her_ I was better?" My jaw clamps down.

"No, son, no. I didn't say that. She pieced that together on her own."

I can't stay to find out what he said. I run back to the pool house for my keys, sure I can catch up with her. I'll be right behind her.

Knowing I have some groveling to do, I'm shocked to find her on the front porch of the pool house.

"Hey," I say, and it sounds exactly like what it is, a relieved breath.

"Hey." Hers sounds abrupt and miles away.

"Come inside." I open the door and step aside for her but she doesn't budge. I look her over and see that even though she has a heavy coat on, she's wearing a skirt underneath, and those boots. A skirt. In this weather? As it hits me that she might have dressed up for dinner, my heart plummets all over again.

"I just wanted to drop something off." She pushes her camera at me. "Here."

"Why are you giving me your camera?"

"It's yours, Edward. You bought it, so take it. It's not mine."

I search her face for any indication of what she's feeling. She's too different, not meeting my eyes. Lips turned down. Cold in a way she's never been. "It was a gift."

"I can't keep it, and if you try to make me, I'll never use it. No, um, in fact, I'll give it to the Salvation Army or something. I didn't ask for it." She slides a hand into the top of her hair and kind of grasps it before letting go.

"I know you didn't ask for it. It was a gift."

"So you've said." Her arms cross in front of her, lips pursed.

"I don't know what my dad said to you, but whatever it was, it isn't true. You can't believe what he says."

"Okay, whatever. Look, I have to go. I'll see you around." She turns to leave, but I can't let her. I touch her elbow, kind of give it a two-fingered tug.

"I know my dad's a dick, but that's not me. I don't think the way he does."

"Goodbye, Edward."

"Talk to me. Please."

She's walking away.

"Isabella!"

She turns and I'm panicked by the look on her face. "Whatever he -"

She takes the few steps toward me and my insides feel like some sort of bomb went off; it's all panic and chaos. My world has turned on its head; what I thought was happening tonight isn't, and I have to try to figure out how to work with this. I know how hurtful my father can be, how he can gut a person, how he's done it to me more times than I can count and even if I don't know exactly how, he's done it to Isabella. My palms are sweating, heart pounding. I'm running out of time and I have to say something fast, but I have no clue what it is.

"What? Talk."

"I - I think you - I think…" And then I say it. My stomach tightens against it, but I say it anyway because it's true and because if I don't she's going to leave believing that whatever my father thinks is the same thing I think, and I need her to know that's wrong. "Fuck, I think I love you."

Her eyes narrow, which is not the reaction I'm going for. I pick up her wrist and rub my thumb across it, but it's like she doesn't feel any of it.

"That's really romantic, Cullen." She cocks her head, nodding - nodding with eyes like bullets aimed square at my head. "You_ think_ you love me? Maybe if I wasn't-wasn't_ trash_, you'd know for sure. It wouldn't be so hard to decipher if I wasn't _garbage_, would it?" She takes a few gasps of air like she's on the verge of crying.

"Is that what he said to you?" I pull her a little bit closer, start to reach for her face but stop myself.

She doesn't answer.

"Did he call you that?" My stomach constricts, too tight.

"Look, I don't want to come between this beautiful thing you have going on with your dad, so love me, or don't love me, figure it out, and have a wonderful life. I'm sure you will. I mean, you guys are fucking platinum compared to my family, aren't you?"

"No. My family's a joke."

"We are not dirt, Edward."

"I know."

"Both my parents work. Hard!"

I nod. She isn't going to separate me from my father so I just have to let her say what she has to say.

"I mean, I'm sorry, you know, my mom can't be a stay-at-home-whatever and I don't have twelve cars."

"Six cars," I point out, although I think that just helps prove her point, not take away from it.

"Or that I can't buy my own cameras."

"I bought you one camera. You bought the rest."

"So, I'm not independently wealthy with a trust fund waiting for me and my own little house. That doesn't make me trash!"

"You're not trash. I'm trash, okay?"

"We don't need your money."

"What? Isabella, I-"

"I'm not here for your money, or your-your gifts."

"I know you're not. I know. I know that."

"Nobody has ever made me feel like shit for all the money we don't have before. My parents are-"

"Your parents are awesome. Sometimes I wish they were my parents. Everything you're saying is true. And it's okay if you don't care about me that way. But I meant what I said."

"It doesn't matter if I love you or not."

"That's right. Exactly. We're still the same. Nothing changes."

"No, that's not what I mean. I mean, even if I love you, it doesn't matter. You live here like a prince, Edward. You need a princess, and I'll never be a princess. I don't _want_ to be one. You live in this second house that's bigger than my whole downstairs, yards away from a house that's twenty times bigger than mine. I don't know why I didn't think any of that mattered."

"It doesn't matter. I don't want a princess. I don't care about money or house size, or what my dad thinks. That shit doesn't matter to me. And don't do that, Isabella. Don't _you_ do that. You're just going to look at me like everyone else does? Look at me and see me drenched in money? Your mind isn't as small as that. If it was, we'd never have become friends."

"Okay, well, duly noted. I'm glad I had the correct _brain size_ to meet The Edward Cullen's criteria. And you - you don't want me making you feel bad because of all the money you have? You don't want people judging you for your money? Poor you. I feel so bad that you've had to deal with this your whole life."

"Bella." My voice is flat; she's hit the right nerve and I'm about to tell her to go ahead and leave.

"Like I said before-" she unwraps my fingers from around her wrist, a wrist I'd forgotten I was holding "-I'll see you around." She shuts the door in my face and I'm staring at it, holding her camera over my shoulder.

She's gone.

I throw the door open and call her name. One more time, I have to try. At least once more.

She pauses when she hears me. She doesn't turn, but she stops, waiting. She wants me to say something. But what? Words evade me. My brain is a mess with everything, and none of it is right.

The night is behind her, wind grazes her hair, and I want to tell her how beautiful she is; how much I not only love her, but_ like_ her; how the way she cares about Max blows me away; how I'd never known or met anyone like her before, and I never will again; how now when my chest aches, it aches for her. Her.

That isn't what she's waiting for.

What does she want? She wants me to tell her that all this money really isn't mine, that I don't really come from this family, that the man in that house, who has degraded and humiliated her like no one has before, isn't really my father. She wants me to tell her I'm really someone else. But I can't say any of that so I say nothing.

She leaves.

I try to come up with some other reason to go after her. I try for anything, any excuse. But nothing is good enough. Now isn't the time to give her Jasper's sketch. And why can't my mind work better than this?

I drop her camera on my bed and take off straight for the main house where all three of them look as though they've just sat down to dinner, like this is all part of a regular day, like the Beaver Cleaver family or something, and the two loving parents will tuck the two loving boys into bed later.

"What are you doing? Why did you do that? Why did you do that?" I'm holding my neck, pacing the length of the table. I stop and face my father, waiting.

"Why do you do what you do?" He takes a bite of his steak too cooly. He chews slow and wipes his mouth off with his napkin all before he even looks up at me.

"I lost my mother, now I have to lose friends, too?"

"One has nothing to do with the other. We all lost your mother. You are not a victim, don't play the part." He takes a sip of his drink, swallows, and when his eyes meet mine again, too slow, they're changed - hardened, less apathetic, and more accusatory. "You have everything. I give you everything. You do nothing but take advantage of my generosity - you and your so-called friends. You think I don't know about the three grand you dropped on a camera for that girl?"

I look over at Max; he's wide-eyed.

"He told me," Esme says. "We were just talking. I'm the one who told your father."  
>I give her a "What the hell?" look. Why is she talking like she's protecting Max from me, like I'm going to start going off on Max? Is this how they really see me?<p>

I think back to how I used to be, before my mom passed away, and I can sort of get why my dad sees the worst in me, but Esme? She didn't even know me then. Looking back at my father, I'm sure he's been talking to her. Telling her all about me.

"What do you want from me, son?" His eyes are on mine.

"Don't call me son."

"Is that it?"

I don't answer.

"Are we done?"

"How about you… you be a dad?" My voice shakes and I pause - try to even it out. I stand up straighter, lift my head some and look down at my father. "The kind Max and I want to come to, not run away from. Why are you the way you are? Why did you have kids if you never wanted to be a father?"

"Your mother was the one who wanted kids."

I nod then shake my head, feel my eyes burn.

"Carlisle!" As Esme snaps at him, his face shoots to hers.

I let out a scoff. "You can't even fake it." Before I leave I put a hand out to Max, kind of like a low wave. "Sorry, Max."

Back at the pool house I spot Isabella's camera on my bed where I left it. I pick it up.

_This is yours_, I tell her in my head.

What would get her to listen to me and to trust me and reverse what my father's done? I do my best to think like her. She likes herbs and thoughts of magic and symbolic gestures. The only one of those things I might be able to pull off is a symbolic gesture. But what? A gesture that means something, but indirectly. Like what she meant to tell me by carrying my article for me. I move her camera to my nightstand where the books she lent me sit, and one of those books gives me an idea.

I spend the entire night rereading _Women in Love_, making notes in the margins - drinking Coke after Coke, just to keep myself awake. Tomorrow at school I'll ask Victoria to give the book to her. I'll have her tell Isabella that I'm asking as a friend for her to read it again.

If Isabella's pause outside my door was any indication, she just might read it.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Why do I feel like apologizing?

Sorry, BellaCullenPR. I know you were expecting better on your birthday.

Happy Birthday, though. Hope it's wonderful!

Thank you for the reviews, recs, tweets, you guys!

Ireen H has written a beautiful review of_ In the Debris_ for Indie Fic Pimp. You can read it here if you're interested:

indieficpimp .blogspot .2012/06/wip-of-week-61112. html (You have to remove the spaces between the dots after you paste it.)


	16. Kindle

**In the Debris**

**Kindle**

**Victoria**

Snow crests the hills crowning the lake, and from here, the way the sunlight edges through the clouds like whitecaps breaking deep gray waves, the sky over the water looks like a furious ocean. And the rays beaming down like light reflecting off a diamond turns the lake as white as ice, even though I know it isn't iced over yet.

Not much more than a corner of the lake is in view, over where the stream spills into it, but it's still more of it than I've ever seen from a neighborhood window. Closer to Isabella's house is the creek, with a little unsturdy looking bridge.

"I can't believe you have this view from your room," I say, turning back to Isabella.

She crosses over to me, gazing outside also. "Sometimes it's fun to just look out and watch how the water changes - everything, the color, the light, right in front of your eyes. When I stare long enough, I feel like it can answer questions the way some people believe prayers can."

She has my complete attention now, the lake all but forgotten. What she just said - she's a dreamer, like me. Maybe it's the art in us that does it. Her photography, my poetry-writing.

"I spend too much of my time at this window. I wish there was a deck or something. I'd sit out there. I'd take pictures."

"The only thing worth seeing from my deck is my aunt's garden." It'll be under snow soon, I think.

"We need your house moved over here. Switch places. What a waste of a view."

There's been something off about her all week. It's the sound of her voice. And even her face, less smile. She'd usually smile after a suggestion like that, like she did when she suggested we trade beds.

I've known whatever it is, this change in her, it has to do with Edward. I don't buy that Edward's leaving campus every day to go have lunch with Max. Something is up between those two, and I wonder if it's similar to what's happening with me and James.

I spot the book that Edward had me give Isabella on her desk next to a stack of other books. As I move closer to it, I can't miss Allen Ginsberg's small_ Howl and Other Poems_ topping the stack. I pick it up.

"You like Beat poetry?"

She snatches the book from me fast, like it's poisoned and she's saving me, or like I'm touching something human hands should never touch. Yes, it's more like she's saving the book from me rather than saving me from the book.

"That's…" Her voice is soft and calm, opposite from the way she snatched the book. "This one's… Yes, I liked some of it. It's hard to understand." She places the book back on top of the others; they're piled from biggest to smallest. Her fingers drift over _Women in Love_, sitting separate from the others. Her eyes meet mine, and her expression is like she's forgotten I've been here all along.

"What does it mean?" I ask her about the book she last touched. I wonder if she's read it yet. It's been days.

She shrugs. "I lent it to him. I guess he was returning it."

"But he wants you to read it again."

"I'm sure it ends the same." She picks it up and flips through the pages like she might a deck of cards. She seems to spot something in the book, and flips back a few pages, looking closer.

"What?"

She closes the book, setting it back on her desk. "He writes in the margins."

"What's going on with you two?"

I recognize the sadness in her eyes, the tears that want to be there, but aren't. "We had a fight or something. I don't want to talk about it, okay?"

I nod. Reaching into my sweater pocket, I grab the joint I got from James at school. Knowing I planned on trying to pull Isabella out of this funk, I thought it might help. I offer it to her.

She takes it, sweeps it under her nose, and with closed eyes takes a sniff. Then she hands it back. "No, thanks."

"It's good. It's from James."

"No, it isn't that. I don't - I don't smoke." She glances down like she's shy or embarrassed about it.

I'm the embarrassed one.

"Oh, I didn't…" I put the joint back in my pocket. "I don't know why I didn't know that."

"But you can. I'll open the window."

I shake my head. "It's okay. I just thought - because you've seemed sad."

She gestures toward my pocket, the one holding the dejected joint. "Is that what you do when you're sad?"

I admit that I do. "If it's around."

"What if it isn't?"

"Then, I write poetry."

This time when she smiles, it's small but real. "I wondered what you were writing in your book at school. I thought it was a journal."

"In a way, it is. My poems are kind of my secret thoughts, I guess. What do you do when you're sad?"

She glances around the room as if in thought. "I light candles with different scents, depending on what mood I'm hoping for. If I want to perk up it'll be citrus or mint. If I want to calm and relax it will be lavender and sage."

She goes over to her nightstand, opens the drawer and pulls out two pillar candles, placing them on glass dishes that seem to be waiting for them on the tabletop. She lights them with an automatic lighter.

"Which did you choose?"

"Lemon balm. It's in the mint family. And the other one is eucalyptus," she says, coming back over to me. "If you were to write a poem right now, what would it be? What would you write?"

"Um…" I look around for some inspiration. I want to give her something that might cheer her up, but everything that comes to mind is dark. I see goblins in smoke coils of a poisoned joint. "I don't really write on the spot. It usually hits me first and then I write it."

She looks disappointed so I try harder. Something cheerful.

I keep my eyes on Isabella until it comes to me. Her eyes look a little bloodshot, like she's had a recent cry, and the brown in them is full of depth, layers of it, and I know there's so much more going on behind them than what she's letting on. Maybe I'm staring too long because she looks away, but when I start to talk, her eyes make their way back to mine.

"I'd write about a girl who doesn't shelve her sorrow by pulling poison into her lungs to trick her brown eyes. Eyes full of soul." I pause, glance down, trying to quell the nerves pricking away at my skin and just see the words. I look back at Isabella, at eyes that really are full of soul. I swallow hard and begin again. The words, forced at first, start to come easier and naturally as I go.

"A soul that offers peace to those around her... places jewels in the pockets of others, while her own pockets come up short. Her needs unmet... A mystery. A Secret deep inside, packed and tied. Won't disappear with the lifting of a window. Won't heal with the air. There. Until she unwraps it herself. And. Maybe takes the offered hand." I shrug with nervousness that never ebbed. I don't like the way my poems sound out loud. They're better on paper or just mixed up in my head - or my heart.

Tears are now glistening in her eyes, making their color lighter, almost golden-brown, like mine.

"You made that up just now? It's beautiful."

I shake my head. "I meant for it to be a cheerful message. I'm not good at cheerful."

"I never thought it mattered that we were so different. We never really felt that different, but we are, and I can't believe how much it matters."

"Us?"

"Me and Edward."

"How are you so different?"

"Castles and cottages."

"Ah, now you're speaking in poetry."

"I guess you rub off on me." She swipes a finger under her eye, perhaps catching a tear I can't see, or pushing it back in from where it threatened to fall. "But you know my secret now."

She comes over to me and hugs me. I don't remember the last time I was hugged by a girl, aside from my aunt. Isabella's littler than me. Everyone I ever hug is always bigger. It feels strange.

"Do you want to spend the night?"

I do remember the last time I spent the night at another girl's house. It was five years ago. I was twelve. Five years ago. I hug her tighter. Of course I want to spend the night.

Before dinner with her family, we work on our homework together. It's different than when I study with James. With James we procrastinate, we get high, we joke around, and somehow try to study in between. With Isabella, she's serious about it, never looking up from her textbook or paper until she's done. Or maybe it's just this mood she's in.

I can't study like that. I get restless. I want to go outside, or walk or something.

I move to the window and watch the lake change, the way Isabella described it. The sun is on its way down, casting the color of every precious metal on the water's surface. I ask it questions. I wonder if my father ever stood and watched the lake, or my mother. I think they did. I wonder if they ever stood and watched the lake together. I think maybe they did that, too.

I remember last summer, James and me out there on this tiny rented sailboat. The wind, the waves, the water bouncing us around, rushing over the top of the boat. I thought we'd sink or flip over. Horrified, I was screaming and laughing at the same time.

"We're wearing life jackets," he said, smiling, and that was it. As he steered the tiller, trying to keep us balanced, he didn't look scared at all. Safe on the dock, I asked him if he had been afraid and he said he'd never been more terrified. I elbowed him and then laughed and hugged him at his waist.

I interrupt Isabella's studies to tell her about this.

She's lying on her side on her bed, head in her hand, open book in front of her, pen end at her lip, and looks up to listen. "James is so funny," she says.

Later, she opens a drawer, pushes a silk looking satchel aside and hands me an oversized T-shirt to sleep in. When I pull it on, I inhale the faint scent of lavender.

In the bathroom she gives me an extra toothbrush, and then we slip into her bed. We talk for hours in the dark. I tell her about my mom, just as I'd told Edward. I tell Isabella how for a few minutes the first time I was at her house I entertained the idea of being her sister, the silly possibility that her father might be mine. But of course I assure her of the impossibility of that.

Underneath the covers her hand touches mine and she squeezes my fingers. She doesn't let go and she listens to me until I'm done.

I stop talking and roll onto my side, close my eyes. I'm exhausted, all talked out.

There's shifting on the bed beside me. From behind my closed eyes, I see a light come on, and hear the sounds of a book opening, and every so often the turning of a page. She's reading the book Edward gave her, I know without looking, and I fall asleep to the sound of more and more turning pages, pages that turn faster than anyone can read. She seems to be looking for something. Something specific maybe. Something Edward must have wanted her to find.

Whatever it is, I hope she finds it.

I think of the way she hugged me and the way she held my hand in bed.

We're friends. We're not acquaintances or potential friends. We're real, honest to goodness, friends. And I believe this so much that tears sneak through my closed eyes.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

There's this new void inside me that began the day Isabella walked away. It's different from the void left by my mother's death. This one, this Isabella void, I feel in my throat and behind my eyes, and because Isabella isn't gone in the way my mother's gone, it gets worse when I'm around her.

I tried to hang out at lunch, but Isabella kept acting like we've just met, like we hardly know each other, so I have to get away. I make excuses - say I'm doing lunch with Max and head off campus.

There's no getting out of Chemistry, though, where she sits in front of me, or ignoring the way the ends of her hair layer themselves on top of my desk, testing me, teasing me. I know what that hair smells like. Or worse, on the days her hair is lifted into a ponytail and her neck is visible, pale, soft. I'm not allowed to touch it, or her lips, that bottom lip.

I wonder if she's read the book. If she has, it hasn't helped any. Should I ask her whether or not she's read it? If she plans on ever reading it?

The night I marked that book up with notes, Max interrupted. It was late, well after midnight. He said that our father told him he didn't mean what he said about not wanting kids. He was just angry.

Max, trying to smooth the waters. I let him think it was all okay, that I understood - conjured up some sort of smile, tried not to rub the back of my neck.

He said our father was looking at him the way I do sometimes.

"How's that?" I asked.

"Like I might fall apart or something."

I told myself not to look at him like that anymore if I could help it. I would hate that.

I offered to let him stay the night in the pool house. He went back to his own room. This had me wondering if he was faking it, too - just keeping his head above water, just keeping his hands on the wheel, because that's all he can do.

.

Today, there's a change in Isabella. It started with the small smile and wave she gave me as I caught her entering her first class.

At lunch before I make it to the parking lot, she catches up to me outside the cafeteria. There's no snow or rain, but as she faces me, she crosses her arms over her chest like she's cold, even in her coat.

"I know we haven't been talking lately, and I'm not sure if…" She looks down at the ground. I'm looking straight at her.

"Go ahead," I say, and it's hard to swallow; my heart pounds.

"I've been trying to get you off my mind."

I stand there like some silent fool because I have no idea what to say to that. My hands know something they're not telling me, and they go to her hips.

"But…" She breaks her thought and doesn't continue. Wind hits her face and she blinks it away.

"What?"

A too long pause.

_Say it._

She turns her head, looking to the side.

"Don't walk away." I twist her at her hips a little.

She meets my eyes. "I don't want to try anymore. To get you out of my mind, I mean."

The grin meeting my lips is small. "Then don't."

"I miss you. So much. And not just as a friend."

I take the sides of her arms, bring my face to hers. One glance over her head, and I notice the window, a clear view to us from everyone in the cafeteria. I continue my lean in to her. "Not here," I whisper, and kiss her high on her cheekbone.

She looks over her shoulder, sees what I see, and nudges my hand. "Come on."

We pass the gym and keep walking uphill into the forest. The fir tree she stops under has high enough branches for her to fit comfortably underneath. I, however, have to slouch to get to her.

"Right here," she says, and her smile is both radiant and mischievous.

We're close, and I'm looking into her eyes. I can feel her stare, it's magnetizing. And this is really it. I think over options I've never considered before. Usually I just start kissing. But this kiss I want to be different. I want to remember it. I want _her_ to remember it.

I lean in, backing her all the way against the tree. I wait, her eyes shut, and her hands are flat on my chest. I bring my fingers to her face and push hair back around her ear. My fingertips keep moving down the side of her neck, and then I bend my fingers, drawing light lines up and down with my knuckles. I open my hand again to cup her jaw.

"Edward-"

"Shh. Don't rush me."

Eyes still closed, she lets out a small laugh, and I mimic it.

And then, I do what I've wanted to do almost since I first met her. I run my thumb along her bottom lip. Her smile fades and her lips part; my eyes close. In my hand, I feel her chin lift toward me and lower I go. My thumb moves out of the way and our lips touch, and at first I just brush my lips over hers, taking in the feel of them on mine. My other hand slips under her jacket to her waist, while my hand at her jaw guides her face where I want it, so that our lips fit together like puzzle pieces. We're interlocking, and that's when I slip in my tongue. Her mouth opens wider, and our tongues make contact. Hers is soft but firm and pressing. My chest surges, the burn in my stomach ignites, and my hips push closer.

I feel a hand move down my torso to my waist, and it's just there, not moving, and still, even as I kiss her, I can't stop feeling her hand. Her other hand hasn't moved from my chest. A few more softer kisses, and I pull back. My thumb follows the line of her cheekbone, and her eyes open. She sighs.

The hand that's on my chest presses against me. "Your heart's beating so fast."

I drop my face to the corner of her shoulder, kiss her neck above the collar of her jacket, but when I tell her the truth, I look at her.

"You don't know how long I've waited for this."

I hold her hand, the one at my chest and she lifts up to kiss me. This time there's much less thought. The first kiss was searching; this one is everything found. We're going at it. Heavy breaths escaping when they need to. My arms wrap around her waist, holding her as close against me as I can, and her arms are around my neck.

This time, she breaks off. "I'm going to have to ignore the fact that your dad hates me."

I'm shaking my head. "He doesn't know you. He's an asshole for what he said to you, and I'm sorry you had to put up with it. Did he really call you garbage?"

"Me? No, not directly. He sent Max upstairs and right after I said hello to him, he poured himself a glass of wine, sniffed it and then said to his wine glass: 'Why is my son under the impression our house is a dumping ground for all the_ trash_ in Forks? All this clingy _garbage_ always after nothing but my money.'"

I can tell she's getting worked up about it again, as I assume she's responsible for the emphasized "trash" and "garbage" in her reiteration, and not my father in his original statement. I can imagine my father saying it easy, as if he's stating a fact and not an insult.

Her arms have left their position around my neck, and I take them and put them back.

"And then he asked me how much money you've floated my way already." Her bottom lip trembles a little bit and she hides it, tucking it into her mouth. I pull it back out with a finger and kiss it, just her bottom lip. "It was the only thing he said directly to me. And then you walked in."

I speak quietly, my fingers tracing her jaw. "That wasn't about you. That was about me."

"How, though?"

I don't really know the answer to that. Truth is, I'm not sure what his motive behind his cruelty was. It could've been to get to me through Isabella, but I have no idea why he'd do that. Probably just to control me. I remember what he said to me on the night I was arrested. He said that he would lock me up in a sense. I'm convinced now that controlling me is his reason for offending Isabella. I should've listened when he told me not to have her over anymore. And that thought is probably the exact thought he wants me to be thinking right now. He was teaching me a lesson. And it didn't bother him for a second that he hurt someone else to do it.

"Control. We've never been what you'd call close, but we haven't been on good terms for the last nine months. And I have, I mean, before-" I break off mentioning my mother "-I used to give money away to my friends, or my - people I thought were friends. Easily. Gas, food, liquor, whatever, I paid for it. I didn't care. So, that really wasn't about you, okay?"

She nods. "I'll just keep my distance from him."

I tell her that's what I do.

"I'm glad you did, but what made you change your mind about me?"

Moving away from me, she goes to her backpack and pulls out the book. My question's already answered.

"I read it again, like you asked. I saw your notes." She opens the book, flipping through pages, turning to a dog-eared page. "You underlined: _There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me_."

I stare at the ground while she reads; I never thought she would read what I underlined out loud. To me.

"What golden light?" She's looking at me as if amused and I'm looking back, all serious.

I move out from under the tree, closer to her. I take her hand hoping this touch will ground me a little, keep me from stumbling - messing up what I want to say. She links our fingers, her palm pressing against mine, which spurs my words. "It was one thing that stood out to me the first time I read it." My eyes are aimed downward at our hands, the fingers of my free hand trace the veins on the back of hers. "He sees a sort of gold light in Ursula's eyes and I - when we first met, I saw the same thing in you. Your eyes lighten just - just a little when you talk about things you love."

I lift my eyes to meet hers and while this pause between us bars me in embarrassment, she's looking at me like she knows exactly what I'm talking about.

"My dad says I get stars in my eyes. That's what he calls it."

I nod. "Yeah, I can see that. But when I underlined that, when I read it the second time, it reminded me of the way, when you're with me, you make me see things differently. The way they should be seen, I think."

"I don't understand you sometimes," she says.

"Then we're even." I cock my head at her, lift my eyebrows, smile a little.

"But how do I make you see anything differently?"

I explain to her how I felt that time we talked about my memory of my mother teaching me to play guitar - the way I thought about it as depressing until she showed me it was a good memory. So simple, but so hard for me to see on my own. I explain about that snowdome being more than just some extra thing, and all the wishing stuff, and the 'magic' I tease her about - how I thought it was all some joke at first, but now I see that it works for her.

She squeezes my hand and there's another long pause between us. She's staring up at me, and I stare back.

With a quick shake of her head, she takes her hand away and starts flipping through the book, and then reads again, "_What was the good of talking? It must happen beyond words._"

"Isn't that one obvious?"

She doesn't answer, but I see the questions in her eyes. "Sometimes, when you're looking at me, like you are now." I laugh a little. "Or… I don't know, it's like you want me to say something, but I don't know what or how. I can't think. I can't say what I mean. But I want you to know somehow. I just want you to know."

She nods at me as if she gets it, and I hope she does. She flips to another marked page. "And then, you underlined Birkin explaining why he wouldn't or couldn't love-"

"No, I didn't underline it." I tilt the book my way and I can see why the uneven lines could be mistaken for underlines. "I crossed it out."

She kind of gives me a sideways grin while squinting her eyes at the same time, like she's still confused. "You wrote in the margin, 'It's more.' What did you mean by that?"

Before I explain it, I take my coat off, ignoring the cold, and lay it out on the ground. We both sit on it to keep from soaking our jeans. I lean forward, resting my arms on my bent knees.

"Birkin was talking about all the ideas about love, or what it stands for and what's expected of it, and he didn't buy into it. It's like love had no real meaning to him. I just meant that it's more than the sort of forced or imprisoned way he sees it. More for me." I eye the ground. I swallow. My heart speeds up. "With you."

She tilts my face until I meet her eyes.

"It's more like, without you, I'm imprisoned. Noosed." I laugh a little and shake my head as I try to explain the way that void felt. This conversation is making me squirm and I feel bad because I know it shouldn't. But it's like I'm offering my heart here and it's beating right in my hand. I close my eyes and when I open them, she's smiling. Beautiful.

"It was a good idea, making you read this book."

"Guess so."

"Did you like it?"

"It was all right." I give her a smirk.

"You liked it." She's come all the way back to me, teasing me like before, like there was never any argument between us, like Sunday and the five days since never even happened.

"It was-" I drop the smirk "-interesting."

She lifts the book again, sifting through pages. "And you underlined when Birkin finally admits to Ursula that he loves her." She reads it, "_I love you, and I know it's final_. And then you wrote 'Bella' in the margin. Not Isabella, but Bella."

I nod with a grin on my face. "She's everyone else's Isabella, but she's only my Bella."

I pull her against my chest, my cheek resting on the top of her head.

"Why do you still call me Isabella, then?" Her fingers sort of scratch over my heart.

"Habit."

She looks up at me. "You love me."

"Yeah. I do. I love you." And I kiss her or she kisses me. We kiss each other. "I didn't know how to tell you what I wanted to say. I've never done this before. I've never wanted to tell a girl how I felt before. I had to think like you. You know? So that you'd listen. That's when I got the idea about the book. I had to use the book. To get the words out."

She takes my hand, relinking our fingers. "You don't have to think like me. I'm not sure it's possible." She lets out a short laugh. "Sometimes I can't even understand my own thoughts."

"You were so mad."

"Yeah, but it wasn't you. It was your dad, not you." She looks down at our joined hands. "You just said that you have a hard time saying what you mean - at least to me - and you-" she looks up at me "-you told me you loved me and I yelled at you." The corner of her mouth lifts like she's disappointed, and she shakes her head. "And I'm not even a yeller. It wasn't fair that I got so mad at you. But I was. I was really mad. And I'm still mad. Not at you." Her hand squeezes mine. I squeeze back. "It wasn't just me he was talking about. It was my family. My parents."

"I'm sorry. I'll make sure he stays away from you."

She turns around, moving away from me, my hands reluctant to let her go, her hands slip away from my hold, and she squats in front of me, her arms crossing over my knees, her chin resting on her arms. "So, are we, like, together? You know, together?" she asks, and I reach for her face, but she catches my index finger linking it with hers. "Like, just us?"

"Do you want to be?"

"Do you?"

"Bella." With her index finger I pull her between my legs. "Do you have to ask?"

She kisses me. "Here. Take my golden light."

She's wrapped in my arms and I shake her back and forth a little, laughing, embarrassed. She can make me laugh like no one else. Without even trying. This is what it's going to be like. She's going to keep making us both laugh when all I want to do is kiss her. I try to control the laughter, my lips on hers, but she won't stop. I turn her over so she's sitting on my lap and I continue to kiss her until she stops laughing and finally kisses me back.

"Wait," she says, but kisses me again. "Wait."

"You wait," I tell her because she's the one who keeps the kisses going and if she isn't stopping, neither am I.

"I have to do something for you."

"You_ are_," I say against her lips.

"No, wait." This time she gets off my lap and grabs for her book, then reaches into her backpack for a pen. Sitting beside me again on the jacket, she flips through the book, searching. It's taking her too long and she keeps shaking her head, flipping pages one way then another, getting frustrated. I push her hair over her shoulder and run a finger up and down her neck, now that I can.

"Finally," she says. "There." She underlines something and shows it to me. "Let's try this."

_One wants to wander away from the world's somewheres to our own nowhere._

"I like that idea," she says.

"Me, too."

We kiss again, her hands at my neck, mine tugging on the sides of her jacket, pulling her closer.

"We're not eating lunch today, are we?" her lips say on mine.

"No," mine say on hers.

* * *

><p>Thank you for reading! :)<p>

So, I'm going on vacation this week, which means next week's update might come late. I think, I hope, I've left this story off at a good place for you.

Thanking Madz for her mad beta skills even though she was on vacation last week. And I have to thank Ireen H and Thimbles (who offer wonderful stories of their own - check out my favorites to find them) again for the critiquing of Victoria's poem, And, again, several versions of it! I value all three of you so much!

Of course I value all of you readers, too. Thank you for all the reviews, recs, tweets, favorites, alerts!


	17. Embers

**In the Debris**

**Embers**

**Edward**

We remain on the hill in the forest until the wind picks up strength, shaking old rainwater from the trees over our faces. Isabella shivers and we decide to go back to campus, reluctantly peeling our mouths away from each other. This time as we walk, instead of following Isabella, I'm by her side, arm around her and I can't seem to stop kissing her: outside, in the halls, near her locker. It doesn't matter where we are or who's around. Me with Isabella? It's like rainfall over a desert. I'm drinking it, soaking it up, face to the sky. She's in my arms now for real, and I'm not letting go. We're heading to class and I begin with my hands on her upper arms, holding tight, walking her backwards. I pull her closer, one arm closing around her, and then the other, squeezing her to me, kissing and kissing, her arms up my back, hands on my shoulder blades. I feel these twinges all over, like little knives stabbing at my skin, only it doesn't hurt. It feels fucking good.

Someone pushes me, actually shoves me from behind, and I'm not even bothered by it. I don't turn to see who it was. Stumbling, I hold Isabella tight to keep us from falling over, and I laugh. She does, too, shaking against me. And then our mouths connect again.

Are her kisses really this good? Or is this what love feels like? Like the kiss is everywhere - all over me. Addicting. That's what this is. How do you stop something like this if you're not forced into separation by classes, by responsibility? And do I want to stop? Absolutely not.

We kiss and it's like playing guitar in front of an audience, and all you see, feel, or hear is music, and it's pulsing through you like it runs in your veins. Isabella is all there is. She runs in my veins.

I let myself absorb it, Isabella's rain, her music connected by chords, by notes, by the strum, strum.

And my body is both relaxed and on high alert at the same time.

But Chemistry, for different reasons now, is close to torture. My book is open, and I can't be sure it's even turned to the right page because I'm not listening to the lecture. I swoop Isabella's hair off her shoulder and bring the back of my finger up and down her neck. She tilts her head to one side, and what this does to me; I have to pull my hand away, stop the touch, shift in my seat. Until this moment, I haven't noticed the way people are looking at us. Or me. A glance around and heads turn, eyes running a different direction like cockroaches hiding from light. Nobody wants to be caught looking. And still, it's the kind of thing where even if certain people aren't looking, you can tell they're aware.

All of this, having a girlfriend, not hiding it, it's all new for me. And for everyone else, too. I know they're going to be staring and talking, and I'm going to have to get used to it, learn to ignore it until it dies down, or try not to notice it.

One person's stare is different. When I catch Newton looking my way in the hall, it's a definite glare, like he's pissed. Is this residual anger over being kicked out of my party? Or is it because of what Alice told me - he had something going on with Isabella over the summer? Or is it both?

I hate the way he's looking at me, though. Not because I feel threatened, but because it reminds me of something I never want to think about - what went on between him and Isabella. Somewhere inside I know it involved fucking, and that's no image I want anywhere within the vicinity of my brain. I'm pissed at Alice for even bringing it up at my party. As much as I want to know everything about Isabella, this is one thing I'd rather have been left in the dark.

I nod my chin at him, just to let him know I see him, and I don't glare back. I don't want him to know he's getting to me. I even sort of smile.

After school I follow Isabella in the Mustang to her house so she can drop off her truck. Our plan is to go downtown, to the coffee shop or somewhere to hang out until I pick up Max from soccer practice. We don't get that far.

As I drive, my hand is under her hair, holding her neck, my thumb tracing.

"I already love your infatuation with my neck," she says.

She leans over and starts kissing the underside of my jaw, up to my ear and then around my ear. My gut climbs to my chest and then my throat, and I pull onto the next neighborhood street, park lopsided along the curb, throw the car in park, and turn to kiss her, my arms reaching around her shoulders. I pull her close.

"Hold on, hold on." She laughs. "My seatbelt." She kisses me, sits back to take off her seatbelt and comes back to me. We're both stifling laughs as I'm practically pulling her onto my lap.

Her hands on either arm slide up as she tugs me toward her. I'm leaning over her now, reaching out to catch the seat before we both fall over. More laughs.

Things are getting so heated between us that I could have sex with her right here in the car if she'd let me, in broad daylight, our only source of semi-privacy the windows we're fogging up. I don't even care. It's been so long for me.

"Control," I say.

"Control what?" Her voice is as out of breath as mine, and it emphasizes everything I'm feeling.

"I don't have any."

"Come over." She takes hold of my face and smashes my lips back to hers. "Come to my room. Stay for dinner. And then come up to my room."

The thought of her room and her bed has me kissing her deeper, even moving my hand up her ribcage, my palm at the side of her breast. "I can't. Max."

She pushes against my chest and sits up a little. My arm is still around her back and I miss her mouth. "What about after? After you drop him off?"

I shake my head. "I can't leave him alone for dinner. If my dad or Esme are home, then I will. I'll be back for sure if he's not alone."

Taking her back to my house is out of the question for now. I won't chance another run-in with my father. It's too soon and I don't trust him to back off yet.

But nobody's home when we get there, so I stay with Max.

I don't see Isabella again until the next night, Saturday. I take her out on an actual date. We go to the lodge on the river, one of the only nicer restaurants in town. The only one with cloth table cloths.

"I've never eaten here before," she says as we're walking through the parking lot. She shifts her bag on her shoulder and I take it from her. Carry it for her.

"Isn't this what boyfriends do? I think I've seen it on TV." It's pretty heavy - her cameras weighing it down. She took the camera that I gave her back easily tonight, even giving it a kiss and saying, "I missed you," before adding it to the mix. It has its own protective casing she calls armour, which only weighs it down more. I wonder how she's able to carry this bag all the time as if it's just another part of her clothing.

"Doesn't your shoulder hurt when you carry this?" I ask.

"Yes!" She rubs it. "My mom says I'm going to get all deformed, or get scoliosis or something."

"You need a new bag. One that's meant to hold cameras."

She stops and faces me. "No. You are not buying me a bag, Edward." Her hands find her hips. "Not unless it's a real holiday type present. No late fake birthday presents or early Christmas presents. No bringing Max into it."

"It _would_ give me and Max something to do together," I joke.

"Just leave it at buying me dinner for now." She turns away from me, walking ahead, her hands clasped together behind her ass.

I catch up, bending to her ear. "Oh, I'm buying dinner?"

She hugs my arm, leaning her head against me. This is something I already notice she does a lot. This or holding around my waist, her hand slipping up under my shirt. And the way she tilts her neck when I run a finger down it. It all gets to me, under my skin, in my pants.

Before we go in, I lead her around the back of the lodge, down some steps to the deck where we can look out at the river.

"It's moving so fast right now," she says, grabbing through the bag that's on my shoulder. She pulls out her camera and takes my picture. She never asks me to pose or waits for me to look when she does this, she just snaps.

"Do you have any pictures of yourself?"

"I don't do self-portraits."

I take the camera from her and aim the lens her way. She stops me to press a button.

"Auto focus for you," she says.

"Good idea."

I take a few pictures of her in front of the river, and then cap and bag the camera. We both stand for a while, looking out. She pulls her coat tighter around her.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to the cold here. Even my lungs feel frozen. My heart is cold."

I put my arms around her from behind to warm her up. my face falling to the side of her neck, my lips brushing. "Your heart is definitely not cold."

In the lodge, I request a table by the window, overlooking the deck and river. Lit only by candles on tables and the fire going along the far wall, the dining room isn't much brighter than it was out on the deck. She takes off her coat and I see that while she's wearing jeans, her shirt is sleeveless, black, and I'm pretty sure silk. There's a long silver chain hanging around her neck, but she isn't wearing her bracelets. Her hair falls over her bare shoulder like a curtain when she hangs her coat off the back of her chair, and my teeth clamp down as it hits me I should have helped take her coat off. I'll try to remember to help her put it on when we're through. She sits down and I groan, bring my fist to my head.

"What?"

"Sorry. I should've pulled your chair out for you." I take my seat. "And damn, I should've opened your car door for you, too. Did I at least hold the restaurant door open for you?"

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"You carried my bag. That's something."

"I didn't hold the door for you? I let it fall back for you to catch it?"

"A little. But my arms work just fine." She lifts her arms up, bending them and then straightening them out. "See? Not the biggest muscles, but I_ think_ they can hold a door."

"Bella, I have to warn you, I suck at this kind of stuff."

"You made that clear when you joked about buying dinner." She smiles and sips the water the host placed in front of her. "Don't worry about any of that gentlemanly stuff. I didn't even notice."

"You didn't notice because I didn't do it. If I had done it-" I lean forward "-you would've noticed."

She cocks her head. "Aw, are you trying to impress me? You remind me of Max right now."

"What? Why? Clueless on a date?"

"Just... cute." She opens her menu. "Besides, you already made an impression on me with your lips." She isn't looking at me when she says it, and I can see her cheeks brighten.

Under the table, my feet wrap around her ankle and tug until she looks across at me. "Don't talk about kissing when you're that far away from me."

She half smiles at me and I half smile back.

"Victoria's uncle owns this place," she says.

"I know. My parents got married here. Right after it first opened." I aim a thumb out the window. "Out on the deck where we just were."

She looks out. Rain has started again. "It must've been beautiful."

"I'll show you the pictures sometime." She's still looking out the window, missing it when I shake my head, knowing suddenly that it will be a long time before I'm even able to bring myself to look at those pictures again. I wonder if the photo album is still in that box in my mother's closet. Maybe Esme moved them. If I did want to look at them again, would I even be able to find them?

After dinner, I do remember to help Isabella with her coat and she kisses my cheek, and I do remember to open the car door for her and she kisses my lips.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Living in a place with weather like Forks you learn just how many variations of gray there are. There's a gray that's almost white and almost black, a gray that's almost blue and almost purple. Tonight the gray clouds are almost green. Almost.

James is almost crying right now in my room, and he was almost crying downstairs at the front door when I opened to his knocking. I've never seen him actually cry. Even when his dad was taken and when his mom killed their porch, and when she went through her depression, there were often almost tears, but they never dripped or fell or escaped from his eyes.

This is as close to crying as I've ever seen him get, and I can't take it, seeing him like this.

"What's wrong?'

He doesn't say anything for a long time; he just looks at me with his almost tears, and his red eyelids. I sit down on my bed, pulling a pillow to my lap.

"What is it?"

"I'm not supposed to be here."

"Why not?"

His eyebrows narrow. "You said-"

I shake my head. "No, it's okay that you're here. What's going on?"

"She's been…" He slinks over to my window and rests his forehead against it.

"Who?"

He taps a finger on the glass - looks like he's matching it up with a raindrop. Head still against the window, he says, "She's been visiting him. Regularly."

"Why? And how do you know?"

He turns to face me. With the night deepening behind him and in the dim light of my one bedside lamp, he looks distinctly younger, almost fifteen again. "You know those interview dresses she showed us? Well, there are more. But they're for him. She's not only visiting him, she's dressing up for him."

"She isn't going to interviews?"

"She might start now. I told her she has to." He unzips his jacket, revealing some obscure concert T-shirt from the eighties or nineties, a concert her sure never attended. It's weird the way he carefully drapes his jacket over the side of my bed, smoothing it down the arms while seeming unaware of any of it.

I feel guilty as I get a little frustrated with him for not just telling me everything. Trying to get this out of him is like pulling apart this pillow in my arms thread by thread. I decide to stop asking questions and just wait for him to spill, when he's ready.

And then he does.

"With her getting a higher paying job I thought. I thought I could quit. Selling. Her money and my construction money would be enough. Even if I had hardly anything left over. But she never went to any interview. She went to him. And now-" He stops, looks away from me, his eyes blinking a few times and then he looks back. When he continues, he's on a different track. "I wake up every day and think about how I got here. Is this me? Maybe I'm just a lost cause."

"James." Tossing the pillow aside, I go over to him and touch his arm. I've never heard him talk about himself this way.

He says no, and backs up, and I don't know why, except maybe because of the almost tears. Too much affection and maybe the tears would no longer be "almost." Is he really on the brink, here? Has he hit his emotional limit? A boat on a wild sea on the verge of capsizing? One more wave, one more touch, and it's over. And as I think it, I know it's true. So I back off a little.

"You're not a lost cause." I tell him about what his mom told me, how she was trying but the job market was hard at her age.

"I heard the same story. Now the story is that she's too nervous and she's comfortable where she is, doing what she knows."

"She's been worried about you."

"Not enough." He rubs the back of his hand under his chin. "We had it out. She knows we both smoke, says she smells it on our clothes. She says I'm doing you wrong." He scoffs, and then I see the muscles in his jaw tense up. "I know this. I know this."

"Smoking is my own decision. I like it. You don't force me."

"Where do you get it?"

"So, if I got it from someone else, you wouldn't be to blame? But as long as I'm smoking yours, it's your fault?"

He crams stiff fingers into the pockets of his jeans. They only fit up to the tops of his knuckles. "I didn't think about all of this when I started selling. So stupid. I thought about the money. I thought about being careful, not getting caught."

"You thought of your mom and your house."

"She was already losing it, her depression."

"But you never stopped to think about how it would make you feel? About yourself?"

"It doesn't matter now, does it? I can't stop, not with things the way they are. "

"What if you tell her that you've been selling? Then maybe she-"

"No way. That would kill her. I'm not out to kill her, but tonight I told her she has to find a better job or I'm moving out. The thing is, I can, Victoria." He points hard at his chest. "I'm eighteen; I make enough money; fuck, I'm paying the second mortgage, I might as well be paying it for myself."

"But then you'll still be selling and your mom will-"

"Be out. I know." His head falls to his hand and he sweeps it through his hair.

"I know you would never let that happen."

"I wouldn't. But fuckin', I have to quit selling before… What is her problem? Why is she acting like she wants him back?"

"Maybe she does. If she loves him, she loves him."

His jaw clenches and his fists tighten, and then his head drops. And he's nodding. The talk is over. He's clammed up. I know him well enough.

"James?"

He looks up.

"Do you want to sleep here tonight?"

He rubs a hand back and forth over his forehead and then down his face. And then nods once.

"But I shouldn't because you - you asked for space. I wouldn't have come here but you're the only person…"

I'm already removing pillows from my bed and pulling the covers back. "We're friends first. Before anything else."

I think about having James pretend to leave, bidding my aunt and Mud goodbye, and then sneak back in after moving his car out of sight. Instead, I walk downstairs and announce to Aunt Cheri and Mud that James is spending the night.

"I'm eighteen," I say, echoing James. "I should be allowed to have him stay if I want to, and all we're going to do is sleep, so there's nothing to worry about."

I turn, head back upstairs, hearing Mud ask if I really need to take that tone with them.

We take turns in the bathroom before crawling into bed. James and I face each other and we're so close. His skin is warm and so is his breath. My heartbeat quickens and my butterflies go until I look into his face, and he still looks so hurt that all that other wishful hoping body stuff goes away. Because it's the truth: we're friends first, before anything else. I'm even able to put my arm over him without hoping for more, or hoping for his touch on me.

I do want to tell him I love him. Not in the_ in love_ kind of way, but just love, the kind that cares forever, even if we're apart. I want him to know how cared for he is. That no matter what, we're family.

Maybe he already knows. Maybe the invitation for him to stay the night is enough.

"I've messed up," he says.

"Messed what up?"

"Everything."

"It isn't your fault, James. It's your dad."

With my arm across his waist, he brings his hand to my hip, and his lips to the corner of my eyebrow, they kiss, and I close my eyes. This is him telling me something. Perhaps he's answering my silent questions, assuring me he understands that I care and that this is enough.

We've never held each other or even really touched when we've shared a bed in the past - with the exception of that one night I was dosed - but tonight, both of us sober, while we aren't exactly holding each other, we are touching. And this is how we sleep.

_I love you, James_, I say into my dream because I do. I love him still. In my dream he says it back.

* * *

><p>AN: So I got this to you in time after all. It seems all I have to do is announce that a chapter won't be ready due to real life, and then, miraculously, it's somehow ready. (With the help of my amazing beta, Madz, who got this chapter back to me so quickly!)

Thank you for reading, and the reviews and recs. You're all wonderful!


	18. Tinder

**In the Debris**

**Tinder**

**Edward**

I cut the engine and look over at Isabella in the dark, the moon nothing but a hint in the sky.

"Wait here." I go around and open her door for her, walk her up to the house, and kiss her on the brick porch, my hand light on the side of her face. As our kiss becomes firmer, so does my touch. She invites me in, not by asking, but by clasping my fingers.

Her parents are in the living room watching a movie and we wave. I barely notice them, my eyes reluctant to leave Isabella. I hear Charlie tell her to keep her door open as I tail her up to her room. It's a little strange noticing things about Isabella that I used to try not to notice. Like the way her ass sways as she climbs the stairs. I put my hand out and just let her hips breeze against my palm. She pauses, turning her head over her shoulder.

"Keep going," I say, pressing my hand a little more. I see her hair shake behind her.

In her room we drop our coats on her desk chair, and the first words she says to me when she closes the door shock me.

Her fingers turn the lock. "Tell me something about your mom."

Hands on my arms, she backs me up to the bed and sits me down, climbing up next to me, her legs bent across my lap, her arms around my neck and she kisses me.

"What do you want to know?" I ask between the kiss, my arm wrapping her knees.

"What did she look like? Do you look like her?"

"A little." I run a hand through my hair, and she follows, scraping around my ear. "Same hair color. Long like yours, brown but without the light strands." I pull my fingers through those lighter strands.

"No highlights? Natural."

"And green eyes."

"Sounds really pretty."

"She was."

Her lips hit up my cheek a few times. "Tell me something else. Something happy. Like the guitar memory."

I think about it for a while.

"Is that okay to ask?"

"Yeah." I clear my throat. "I'm just thinking."

I end up telling her about how my mom, Max, and me used to have water gun fights. "I was fourteen, I think, the last time we did that. Max must've been nine or ten." I pull her legs closer against me and take her lips again before I continue.

I tell her about how we'd fill our guns up with pool water and chase each other around, cocking, aiming and shooting a long enough stream of water to soak a person. Then we'd refill and start all over again. My mom was fast and good at dodging. And she would laugh almost the whole time we played. Eventually we'd all end up in the pool. Sometimes we were wearing swim suits, sometimes we'd jump in with all our clothes on, because it didn't really matter, our clothes were already soaked through from the water guns. Most summer days, the pool water was warmer than the air outside.

Isabella's laugh makes me smile, even though on the inside I'm not smiling at all. I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about memories like this. Not even with Isabella.

She must sense something different in my smile. "You okay?" Her eyebrows furrow.

My hand is drifting under her shirt up her back, feeling her skin, so when I say, "Yeah," it's the truth.

There's a knock at the door and Isabella motions toward her desk chair. I follow her directions, moving from the bed, sitting down on the cushion of our coats I forgot were there. Too late to move them now. She smoothes out her bed before answering the door.

"We're going to bed," her dad says, and then peeks his head around at me. "It's nearly midnight, Edward."

"I'm going home soon, Sir… uh, Mr.-"

"Charlie." Pushing the door open wider, he reminds me to be a gentleman before saying goodnight and making his way down the hall. Isabella and I look at each other and laugh quietly. She shuts the door and I see her lock it again.

"You called him 'Sir.'" She starts laughing harder and at my expense. I stop laughing.

"I've never had to address a girlfriend's dad before."

With hands on my shoulders, she brings her lips to mine. "It was perfect."

As we kiss, I stand up so I can wrap my arms around her, feel her closer.

"What if he comes back?" I ask against her throat.

Her body kind of shivers, I think because of my mouth and breath brushing her skin. "Then you'll probably have to leave."

Her hand is sneaking under my shirt to my abdomen. "I love this bit of hair on your stomach." She tickles me there.

"Bella." I smile.

"What? You like?" She does it again.

I nod. "I like."

She tilts her head to the side. "Say my name against my neck."

I bring my mouth to the skin she's offerring me. "Which name?"

"It doesn't matter." A quiver runs through the words.

"Bella, Isabella," I whisper. She's melting against me. I hold her up. "It's really good to know about this neck weakness. Really good."

"Mmm." It isn't much more than a sigh.

This is pretty much the sexiest thing I've ever experienced fully dressed or not, and _I'm_ doing it to _her_. My hips want to push into hers and they will. They will. But not yet.

"Have I told you that I think you're beautiful?" I ask. "Because I do. You're really beautiful."

"Your eyes are closed," she says, her voice losing strength as she speaks. Even though my mouth is still on her neck and I couldn't see her even if my eyes were open, I play with her.

"I've memorized your face."

"You're beautiful, too," she whispers.

"Your eyes are closed."

"No, they aren't."

I lift my head and what I see makes me laugh. They are closed.

Our mouths meet again.

She tugs the end of my shirt and I take it off, and her fingers, warm and soft, make immediate contact with my chest. I don't notice we've been moving until she hits the wall. I step back afraid I actually banged her into it. "Sorry."

Her breath is on my throat before she kisses it, her fingertips trailing around my sides to my back, and I can feel her stomach against my crotch. Every move she makes is a rub, and she isn't even aware of it. I press closer. I've got to feel myself between her legs, so I bend my knees to match her height, and grind against her on the next kiss. That still isn't enough. I keep kissing her, tongues together, and grind again. And again. She lets out a high pitched gasp and something shoots through my stomach. I need to make that noise happen again. I keep grinding, keep kissing. One of her legs raises and I hold her by her thigh. This is even better, this angle. Even through underwear and two layers of jeans I can really feel her.

"Edward," she whispers, my name only a breath on my skin.

"Hmm?" I'm kissing her shoulder, and press her again. It's become so automatic I'm not thinking about it as I do it, but I'm feeling everything.

"Edward?"

"Yeah?" My mouth is at the top of her chest now, and I've dropped her leg, my hands up her shirt over her bra, covering her breasts. "Bella."

She sighs.

I lift her shirt, wanting my mouth on her bare skin. She raises her arms and lets me pull it off her, wiggling a little as if she wants me to do it faster. And then it's just her bra and my hands are there, thumbs sliding across the top. Her head leans back against the wall and I'm conflicted with going for her arched throat with my lips or the curve of her breast. I start at the throat, making my way down and her breathing is heavier than I've ever heard it. And I have a need to really feel her. I unbutton her jeans as I'm kissing her. Unzip. And I think she's hardly aware. My hand slips in, over her panties. A gasp, a quick hop to her tiptoes, and her arms raise, knuckles banging the wall, and I see as well as feel how I'm affecting her, and I want my hand under her panties. I slide my fingers inside - lace on the backs of my fingers and wetness on the front tips. My middle finger presses, rubs, and god I want her so bad. And that's when she says my name again.

"Edward. Wait."

I pause my finger. My mouth is off her. Her chest is rising, practically calling to me. I can feel the pull. But she's said wait. I'm confused.

"What?"

"Wait," she says again, and it registers that she's asking me to stop. I pull my hand out from her pants.

My eyebrows narrow. I sit on the edge of the bed, try to calm my breathing and to grasp the situation. I press down on my crotch; there's no subtle way of doing that. "Damn." I shift, still uncomfortable. "Did I do something wrong?"

She's smiling and shaking her head. But I'm still not understanding. We're stopping? We're done? _Us?_ After Jasper and - fuck - Newton? She's stopping _me_?

"Okay," I say as if I understand but I still don't.

She comes over to me, nudges my legs apart with hers, her hands moving from my shoulders and down my chest. I take in a breath at her touch. Is she teasing me?

Picking up my hand, sliding her fingers in between mine, she whispers. "Not here. Not with my parents just down the hall."

I get it now.

"They like you. I don't want that to change."

"Not tonight," I say, letting her know that I understand. "But, are we done or can we…" I tuck a finger into her still open jeans and pull her closer. I kiss her stomach.

"Make out some more?" she asks.

"Yeah." My tongue finds her belly button.

"That depends. Can you control yourself?" And the way she says it, it's like she can barely get the words out. I smile against her skin. Her soft skin.

"I'll try," I say.

She climbs onto my lap, her knees on either side of my legs, and kisses me. Then she backs away, off the bed, her hand still on my face. "I have an idea. Put your shirt on." She pulls her own shirt on and I'm disappointed not to see her skin anymore. I put a hand under the bottom of her shirt, touching her lower back just to feel her body. "Come on," she whispers, opening her door, reaching back for my hand. Our fingers clasp.

The house is dark and quiet. I have to be careful not to bump into walls or furniture as I follow her down the stairs and through the living room. Each time the floor creaks, she freezes and I hold my breath.

She leads me out the back door. It's ice cold outside. I have no clue what she's planning. She takes me through to the garage - where an automatic light comes on making me squint - and pulls me into her truck.

She doesn't want to do it in her room, but our first time together in the truck is okay with her?

"Not sex," she clarifies as if she's read my mind.

"You are so hard to figure out." I kiss her anyway. I don't care if I never figure her out. I like it this way.

"Be a gentleman, Edward." She tugs me closer by the neck of my shirt as she lies back.

"What, exactly, would a gentleman do in this situation?" I climb on top of her.

"I've no idea."

Both our shirts are coming off already and then she's undoing my pants. I go after hers also and we're fast to relieve ourselves of our jeans. Although they're not all the way off, just pushed down to our knees. Our shoes are still on. The windows are fogged over already. I laugh.

"What?" she asks, but then she's kissing me and her hand is roaming over the front of my boxers, and nothing else is funny. I press into her hand and she grasps me for the first time and I can't keep the groan out of my throat.

Her thighs part and I slide between her legs and if I thought I could feel her through our jeans, I knew nothing.

My eyes are closed when the automatic garage light goes off, and when I open them again, everything is black.

My mouth searches out skin and finds her throat, and when I grind this time, I can imagine even more what it would be like to be inside of her.

"Isabella." I touch her breast, wishing her bra was off. "Lift up," I say so I can reach around. But with the tight fit of the cab and the position we're in, I can't reach around her so she unhooks her own bra, and I pull it off. It's still so dark and hard to see anything, but I feel my way over her body with my mouth. Her chest is heaving, her stomach really moving with every breath, and I turn on my side so my hand can slip down to her underwear again.

"Edward," she says, and I freeze, afraid she might stop me, but she doesn't. So I let my fingers inch under her panties and I touch her. Her head is back, she's arching. She's letting me. Not only is she letting me, but she wants me to. I'm teasing her with my finger; she's squirming. My mouth on her neck moves to her chest. And then my tongue over her breast, and she whimpers. My hand is in my own way, and I'm unwilling to remove it from its position so I grind on her hip some. It embarrasses me a little, but it has to be done because she's really squirming now, and I'm hearing moans, so I can't be expected to keep myself still. I'm not sure she's aware of what I'm doing with myself anyhow, as she's all too focused on what my fingers and mouth are doing to her.

She's squeezing my upper arm, and I take that as an indication to move my fingers faster. Her leg that has enough room lifts up and then her hips lift too. I give her more. I give her my tongue over her breasts. One then the other, and she's moaning louder. I nibble a little and pull with just my lips. Her moans are coming faster, a high breathy sound. I have a need to look at her.

With eyes, now adjusted to the dark, I see that hers are closed, her head is back, and she's biting her lip. She's biting her lip so hard, I'm afraid she'll hurt herself so I kiss her. When I feel her teeth on my lip, I laugh a little, but she doesn't notice because she's gone. She's really gone. She has to still my hand and turn her body to stop me.

"Edward," she says and it's kind of a moan. She pulls me on top of her, hugging me, breathing deep.

I'm afraid I'm squishing her so I shift us around in the tight seat to have her lie against me. She's like jello in my arms, she's that relaxed. It's like her bones went missing.

"Edward." It sounds like a sigh.

"Yeah?"

"Edward."

"Yeah?"

Her cheek is against my chest, one hand holding my shoulder, the other at the top of my head, fingers sliding through my hair, and she says nothing else. She's nodding off. She doesn't reach to touch me even though my jeans are still down, and I'm not going to ask her to. Not that it wouldn't be great or welcome, not that parts of me aren't still throbbing for her. But in spite of all that, doing this just for her feels right. Just for the girl. That's new.

I smile and fall asleep, too, rubbing lines up and down her bare back.

.

She shakes me awake shouting my name and, "It's morning!" She's already got her shirt on and I rush to get dressed and she's laughing. Her parents could possibly find us and she thinks it's funny.

"Can you imagine? I won't let us do this in my room because of them, but if they catch us out here. Oh my god, I'd die."

"Awesome you find this funny. I might actually die. Be killed, you know. But you think it's funny."

"It's okay. You could just say, 'I'm leaving soon, sir." She laughs all over again and I shake my head at her.

She walks me to my car and kisses me goodbye.

"I'm sorry I fell asleep. It was an accident. I'll make it up to you next time."

Before she leaves, I pull her back, an arm rough around her waist, and I whisper in her ear, "From now on, my house."

I think that if we just stick to the pool house, keep away from the main house we can avoid accidental meetings with my father.

I hope she can sneak back to her room unnoticed. I ignite the engine, and as I pull away I realize that my jacket's still in her room on her chair.

On the next street I get a text.

"I'm in," it reads.

Somehow that turns me on.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

When I wake I'm sticky with perspiration under my hair and behind my knees. There's a welcomed weight and radiating heat all around me that's more than just bed covers. It feels like summer, and if I lie here long enough, I'm sure I'll feel the sun shining right on my skin, burning me red.

As I become more lucid I remember that James is in my bed. My back is to him and I'm snuggled into his body. That heat I've felt is him, and the weight is his arm around me, and I put my own arm over his, tempted to lift his hand and kiss it, but I don't move. Can't move. I'll lie like this for as long as life allows.

Before he's fully awake, he pulls me closer and his lips press into my hair. My eyes close, and I feel something bigger than James surrounding me, something more than friendship. It's so encompassing and real that for a minute I let myself believe that he does love me, he just doesn't recognize it. But then he sits up and his arms and all of his body leave me _un_encompassed by anything. There's a chill as the covers fall away. Summer's gone.

"Feeling better?" I ask him.

He nods.

Just like last night we take turns in the bathroom, and when it's his turn, I walk him there in case we have to deal with my aunt or Mud.

While I'm dressing and waiting for him in my room, I decide that I can do this, and I will do it. Being with him as friends makes me happier than being without him. I don't know if it's right or healthy, I only know how it makes me feel, and I know he needs me around, too. He needs to know he can come to me without guilt hovering over him.

Sitting at my desk, the old photo album on my lap, I cross my feet at the ankles and tell him about how I'm looking for my dad, how I know he's from Forks and that people living here now probably know him.

"How do you know he's from Forks?"

I slip the picture out and offer it to him. "My mom's pregnant with me in this."

He takes the photo, fingers careful, holding at the edges. "How is this proof?"

I turn his hand over, pointing out what my mother wrote on the back, knowing that he'll also see my scribbled poem. "First day in Arizona. She's two months pregnant."

He's looking at it too long. I know he's reading the poem, and I wait. Minutes pass and he's still reading. I move over to the bed, feeling exposed, naked, wondering how many times he's reading the poem. I'm sure he could have been through it more than five times by now.

Finally he looks up, his expression pained, parted lips, narrowed eyebrows.

"Do you really feel like you're not whole?"

I shrug and can no longer look at him. "I'll never know who I might've been."

"Who you might've been wouldn't have ever known me."

I nod, eyes on the floor.

He bends down in front of me and grasps my hand. "Victoria, look at me." He squeezes my fingers until my eyes meet his. "You're _whole_. You're a whole, complete person."

I wipe under my eyes. "So, you don't like the poem?" I smile at him.

"The poem is good. I think it's good writing, even if I don't know anything about poetry. But it's how you see yourself that kills me."

I take the picture from him and put it away. "Will you help me find my dad?"

"How?" He's off the floor now, standing again.

"I have to find out as much about my mom as I can. Maybe I can find her. She'll tell me who my dad is. Even if it turns out she doesn't know for sure, she has to at least have a few options for me. You know?"

"What makes you think she'll tell you? If you find her?"

"She has to. She owes me that much. She owes it to me. I'll make her tell me."

"Does your aunt know where she is?"

"They haven't heard from her in over a year. Last time she called, I think she was somewhere in California, but we don't know where. The time before that, she was in Colorado."

James says that of course he'll help me. We have to try to find out who my mom was closest to in Forks. Maybe there's even someone here she's still in contact with.

.

Two days before Thanksgiving break, I get a phone call from Mr. Alistair at the pastry shop asking if I'm still interested in a job. He tells me that business picks up this time of year, and what he's offering me might just be seasonal for now, but if I want the job, I should come in for training as soon as possible.

For two days after school, he trains me on the register and I practice taking a few orders. He says he'll do the baking, but he might need me to do some mixing, and definitely the pretty packaging. It's almost as artsy as the cakes themselves the way he likes them packaged up like presents with perfect blue satin bows tied on top. Soon, at Christmastime, he tells me, the boxes will be white instead of pink, and the ribbons will be red and green. He says he'll make cupcakes and cookies in the shapes of ornaments and stars.

"My top sellers," he says.

On my first day of training, James sent me a text saying that his mother was offered a job. A second after I finished reading it, another text came: _Community Bank_. Seconds after that one, another text came: _That's what she told me. Do I trust her?_

I answered him with a simple,_ yes_, and I'm unsure if my answer was truth or hope.

.

Home from work, I smell the wassail right when I walk through the doorway, and I head for the kitchen to spoon myself a cup. My aunt always makes this cider around this time of year, letting it simmer in a huge pot on the stove forever. Thin apple and cloved orange slices float on top. My cup steams, and I place both my hands around it, so warm and tart smelling. I take a sip, burning my lips with it. I don't even care because it tastes so good.

I find my aunt on the sofa with her own steaming mug in front of her on the coffee table. The TV's on, but she's not paying attention. It's just for the noise as she knits, she's told me before. I haven't seen her knit in years. I go over to her, taking one more sip of my drink before setting my cup next to hers, and then I lie across the sofa and rest my head in her lap like I used to do as a little girl, watching the wiggling yarn lift slowly into her creation.

She squeaks out a laugh. "I miss this," she says. "You grew up too fast."

"What are you making?"

"A scarf." We stay that way for several minutes. And then she asks, "Did you notice the trees this morning? Covered in snow? You used to say the branches smashed down by snow like that looked like angels' wings."

"They do," I say, and I did notice them earlier. "They're not pressed down anymore. The rain melted the snow."

I continue to watch her knit until the line of yarn stills, and she leans forward, setting it on the table. She pats my shoulder. "Sit up."

I do and look at her.

"How are you, sweetheart?"

"Fine."

"Are you?" She reaches for my face. "We were okay to you, weren't we? Your uncle and I? We've tried our best. Remember our family vacations?"

I nod but can't answer.

"Remember our motorhome trip? Lake Shasta? Crater Lake, too? Remember camping and that creek? Uncle Phil built a little dam there for you to play in."

"I helped build the dam," I say.

"You did."

I was nine and had so much fun piling up the rocks, watching the water slow and then still as our little wall grew wider and taller. It took us hours. When I first stepped in that stream, water flowed swiftly by me, cold and to my calves. Hours later, rock after rock piled one on top of the other, the water met my waist, and it was as calm as a pool, my own little swimming hole, and on the other side of our dam, water babbled along, slipping between rocks like a miniature waterfall. I smiled and laughed, splashing around in circles, hiding underneath plants and small trees that curved over the stream, as Aunt Cheri pretended to search for me.

"I think she went to bed," my uncle said. "She was beat."

"Guess so," my aunt said, and then I kicked a splash. "Wait," she said, "did you hear that?"

"Probably just a fish jumping."

"Do fish giggle?" Aunt Cheri asked, and I covered my mouth.

Later, in the sun, I followed a tiny blue-winged moth all around, stopping only to pick wildflowers along the way. Back at camp, I filled a plastic cup with creek water and used it as a vase, placing it in the center of our picnic table. .

"That's some dam we built," my uncle said as I arranged my flowers. "Six, maybe eight inches when we started, and at least two feet deep when we finished."

I shake my head free of his voice, his kindness. I really do not want my mind taking a ride down memory Mud lane. "I remember that deer," I tell Aunt Cheri. "He was so close. I bet if I had food he would've eaten it out of my hand. But he was beautiful and creepy at the same time."

"Why creepy?"

"The way he just stood there, didn't run. It's not natural."

"That camping spot. He's probably used to people, grew up around them."

"Yeah, that's what you told me when I tried to say I was some kind of magic fairy who could talk to the animals."

She laughs. "I blew your dream."

"Nope. I still believed it. I thought you were wrong. I even wrote a poem about it." I reach for her hand and answer her earlier question. "You were good, Aunt Cheri. You are, still. Just like a mother. Better."

I see tears nestling into her eyes, making them shine such a light blue they look like crystal.

"But my mom, I think she was good, too. I think she had good in her, didn't she?"

"What's this? Why all this about your mother all of a sudden?" She stiffens up. The touched tears are gone, her expression cold, her eyes gone flat.

"I just want to know what I come from."

A look comes over her face like she's in thought, like she's weighing something. One corner of her lip curves into her mouth like she's chewing on it. Eventually she pats my leg and tells me to wait here.

She's gone for a while and I pick up her knitting, add to it a little before she returns with a shirt box tied with twine. Sitting beside me, she unties the bow, opens the lid and pulls out an envelope from the top of folded tissue paper.

"It's for you." She offers it to me. "Your mother. She wanted me to give it to you if you had questions, if I thought you were ready."

There's no writing on the envelope. I turn it over. It's still sealed. "When did she give you this?"

"Years ago. Years and years. I never read it," she says, but that's already clear. It looks as though it's never been tampered with. It looks brand new, like my mom could've written it and sealed it yesterday.

I stand up. I'm going to read it alone in my room. Aunt Cheri knows this somehow. She hands me the box. "Take this, too. She told me to keep the letter with what's in this box. She told me to save this, specifically, for you - even if I got rid of everything else, to be sure to save this one thing."

.

On my bed, legs criss-crossed together, the box over my lap, I remove the letter quickly, but unfold the paper slowly. When I get the first glimpse of her handwriting, I close my eyes. Still, I can see it, the _Dear Victoria_, behind my eyelids. Her slanted writing, long, reaching letters. I take a breath, open them again, and I read.

_Dear Victoria,_

_That's you. My sweet Victoria. Do you know why I chose that name? It's a beautiful name, yes. But also, it means victorious. Conqueror. It was the name of the longest female reigning monarch in history. Did you know that? I wanted you to be strong. Stronger than me. Can a name do that for a person? I don't know. Maybe it's silly._

_As I'm writing this, I'm wondering if this whole thing isn't silly, if you'll even read it. If it will do more harm than good. What do I wish to achieve with this? Achieve? Nothing, really. No excuses here. I know who I am, how I am, what I am._

_All that I want is for you to know that you're thought of and loved. Loved by me. Is that a hard concept to understand? Being loved from so far away, by someone you don't even know?_

_I remember you, tiny in a white dress, picking old daisies from the grass in our front yard, linking them into a chain. You made a crown, and I was sure you'd put it on your own head. I came over to you, knelt in front of you, to tell you how beautiful it was. You pulled me closer, little sticky fingers on my neck, and had me bow my head. You put the crown on me and called me Queen._

_Did you notice the tears in my eyes? The admiration that was there? The gratitude? My daughter thought of me as Queen, and in that moment I told myself that I would be what you saw in me. A queen. I'd get better for you, be the mother you deserved. And I tried._

_When they took you away from me, at first I was devastated. But then I learned you would go with my sister and that she would keep you until I got well. I hate to admit this, but I felt free. I despised myself for that. But once sober, I could think clearer, and I understood why I felt free. It wasn't because you were no longer with me, it was because I knew you were with someone who would give you what you needed, be what I could never be for you. Sometimes a person has to let go of someone else if it's what's best. And it was what was best._

_It wasn't the name that would make you victorious, it was the people surrounding you, taking care of you. If anyone could do that, it was my sister._

_Do you have dreams? I know you do, and I hope you go after them. I think you will._

_I used to dream. I dreamed of getting out of Forks, going to California, becoming a dancer or a singer or an actress. I think I could've done any of those things, really, but I never tried._

_I did get out of Forks with my baby in my belly, with idealistic hopes in my heart, with a flourishing garden in my mind. I dreamed I'd find a cute little house with all the money I saved, that we'd run around on the grass, that I'd pull you around town in a wagon. And it worked for a little while. We did all of that._

_But there were other things, things you couldn't see. Do you remember moving? I made it seem fun, didn't I? Like an adventure. The sparkle in your eyes when I announced our next move, our next adventure. I had myself believing they were adventures, too. Something new. Something unknown._

_Everything is easier as long as you don't look at yourself, don't look at how dark your soul's become._

_I'm twelve weeks clean now, and if I can keep it up this time, I'll come to you. Maybe I'll be able to hand this letter to you, look into your eyes._

_I made you that white dress, stitched it for you on our neighbor's sewing machine. It was beautiful on you. I'll ask Cheri to save it so that you can have something to touch, something that I did for you, some kind of effort I put out just for you. So that you can see that I did care, I did try, I did think of you._

_And I always will. You might not know it, see it, or feel it. But I will be thinking of you._

_I miss you._

.

Her handwriting had started out beautiful, growing messier toward the end, her signature hardly legible. There were small water stains splattered on the page, dried tears. And while there was a tightness in my chest and a hardness in my throat, my eyes did not add new tears to the page. I'd learned over the years to turn any sadness over my mother into anger, the kind that didn't shed tears.

I open the box and push the tissue aside, curious. Holding the tiny white dress by the straps, I pull it out. Ties at the shoulders, eyelet lace at the hem. I go to my mirror next to my bed and hold the dress up to my shoulders. It falls to my stomach.

So small. The little girl who wore this dress was so small. I don't know her, so I put the dress back in the box, folding it just as neatly as the little girl's mother must have. I add the letter, tucked back into its envelope, and re-wrap the box in twine. And even though none of it feels like mine, not even the letter, I put the box at the top of my closet and ponder the stranger who wrote that letter, her blue eyes, her amber head wrapped with a daisy crown, and think, _You're not a queen._


	19. Pyre

**In the Debris**

**Pyre**

**Edward**

Isabella walks into the pool house with a big smile on her face and a big bag on her shoulder - bigger than usual and she lets it drop heavy to the floor.

"More cameras?"

She shakes her head, pushing the door, closing the night and the cold out, and pushing me backwards. She rises to her toes, a hand on my chest as if to steady herself, to kiss me. My hands catch her hips. "Clothes," she says between a kiss. "Toiletries." Dropping to her heels she says that she can stay a couple of days, if I want her to.

If I want her to? My hands graze up and down her sides; my mouth positions itself back on hers. Does this answer her question? I guess it does; she's prodding me toward the bed.

We haven't been able to spend time alone together since our first date at the lodge. Between studying and my responsibility to Max, we couldn't get it together. I hung out at her house as much as I could, but one or both of her parents were always around. And when I asked her to come over, she told me it would be easier on the weekend.

That was three nights ago, when Max and I had dinner over there again. Afterward Renee put on an old home movie, asking if we wanted to see_ Baby Izzy-B_.

Isabella had no problem with this at first. She hopped onto the couch, her legs bent under her and pulled me down next to her. Max took a seat opposite us in Charlie's overstuffed easy chair, a Pepsi can in his hand.

Charlie was in the kitchen doing the dishes. Apparently this is something Charlie and Renee take turns with, although Charlie has to be reminded of this. Renee did the reminding at dinner, telling him that since she cooked the meal it was his turn to clean up. "Remember?" she said. _"Remember?_" He just sort of laughed and nodded his head, bent over his fork with spaghetti half hanging out of his mouth. They gave Isabella the night off of KP help to spend time with her "guests."

On the screen, a five or six year old Isabella was spinning in circles, her little girl voice singing _Twinkle, Twinkle_. Her hair was still long and dark back then, but stringier than it is now, kind of messy. Really messy. I tugged on the ends of her eighteen-year-old hair. She smoothed her hair down over her head and took my hand, pulling my arm around her and settling our hands at the base of her stomach. This made me want to kiss her but her mom was right there, standing by the edge of the couch, leaning over her crutches, and I could feel her eyes on us, even if they weren't. Instead of focusing back in on the TV, my eyes were focused on Isabella's neck. My lips couldn't go there, so I just took my hand and tickled a little bit with the tips of my fingers. Isabella leaned her head toward me without taking her eyes off the television. Not even a glance passed between us, and still this was a just her and me moment, and nobody else in the room knew about it.

The next video Renee put on was a scene that had clearly taken place a few years later. Isabella was in a bright pink striped swimsuit, on a beach, building something with wet sand she called a castle when video-Charlie asked her what it was. His hairy legs were all that could be seen of him on camera.

"It looks more like a big hole," I said.

"It was an underground castle."

"Why would you do _that_ to it?" I asked when her little self started pouring buckets of ocean water into her "underground castle."

"It's a flood," she said, elbowing me in the side. And then, as the girl on screen found her towel and began to lie down on it, Isabella next to me, suddenly enough to startle me, jumped up. "No, no, no, Mom!"

"What's wrong-" Her mother started to say before the voice behind the camera cut her off - her own voice from years ago. "Look at that wedgie," came the voice as the camera zoomed in on her daughter's butt, the swimsuit all bunched up in the crack.

In that instant I felt my eyes grow and my smile widen before I looked away fast while Isabella screamed that she was dying, her back turned away from the TV, and the rest of us. Her mother hobbled over on her crutches to shut the movie off.

My attempt at suppressing my laughter was made near-impossible by Max, who was letting it all out, hunched over, uncontrollable. I was surprised he didn't start rolling around on the floor or something.

I went over to Isabella and put an arm over her shoulder, a laugh getting away from me as I tried to reassure her. "It's okay. I stopped looking right away. Right away." I was sure Max couldn't say the same thing, though. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, I still had the sense to be thankful for the fact that this had been Charlie's night to do the dishes; he missed it all.

"Parents are so embarrassing," Isabella said, her face in her hands, her whole upper body involved in her head shake, a gesture she was probably hopeful would get rid of all the images in her brain right now.

"I had no idea," her mother was saying, only it was all laughter just like Max. "I forgot all about that!"

Later, after uncomfortable silence from the four of us replaced our laughs, Isabella walked us out. On the porch, as Max waited in the car, I asked Isabella to come with us. She teased me, "Are you all turned on now because you saw my nine year old butt?"

"I'm turned on," I said, "because you're in my general vicinity." I tugged her closer by her side belt loops. One hip and then the other. Closer.

It's embarrassing when I think about the way I practically begged her to come home with me, kissing to entice her, mentioning promises on her throat of how good I would make her feel. Over her neck I whispered, "Bella, Bella, Isabella. Come on."

She hummed a sigh before shoving me back at my chest. "You have evilness in you, Edward. Evil." She placed her hands on the sides of my face. "This weekend." She pulled my face to her lips and kissed. "It'll be easier."

And now it's the weekend. The first weekend of Thanksgiving Break, a week off from school, and here she is dropping her bag on my floor, pushing me around, announcing she's staying.

"What about your parents?"

"I told my mom I'll be at Victoria's."

"What if she calls there?"

"That is the amazing thing about this invention called the cell phone." She reaches into her coat pocket, pulling her phone out. She taps it. "When my mom or dad need to get a hold of me, they always call this thing."

"Cell phone, huh?"

"You got it." She goes over and tosses her phone on my nightstand. "I'll write it down for you before I go, so you don't forget."

From behind her I help her take off her coat, letting it fall, my chin nudging her hair out of the way so I can kiss the side of her neck. "Two days?" I turn her around - my lips find hers.

"And two nights." Her tongue finds mine. Delicious.

When she reaches around my neck, I hear the jingling. I lift her wrist. "The bracelets?"

She shrugs. "I can be who I want."

I take a look at her. She's avoiding my eyes, there's a light blush forming on her cheeks, and for a second I consider this. I consider the bracelets, what they mean to her, and her magic. Does she use these bracelets for strength? To do things she normally might not have the guts to do - like just coming here and dropping off a bag, announcing she's staying?

Somehow, the fact that she may be less sure of herself with me than she lets on, the fact that she needs, or thinks she needs, a crutch to be this forward, turns me on further. This, or her tongue in my mouth. I inhale deep, lift her up and bring her to the bed. Last time I did this, we hugged all night. This time will be different. _More._

I'm already hard. It started the second she walked through the door and it became more as soon as I thought the word.

I start to lift her shirt, her hand stops me, and pushes against me until I'm on my back. Looking down into my eyes, she shoves her hair behind her ear and then her hand dips under my shirt, rubbing up my stomach as she nudges my shirt out of the way. I help her get it off me. Her hair falls forward again as she leans over me, and I push it back, keeping my hand there, my fingers tangled in her hair, while her fingers drift down my body. She lays a couple of pecks on my chest, and then my stomach, all lips. When I feel her tongue just above the line of my jeans, my stomach contracts and my fist clenches and unclenches in her hair. She starts undoing my jeans. Does she know she's undoing me as well?

Her hand slides into my pants, rubbing over my boxers. My eyes close, and my hips involuntarily shift upwards against her hand. She's still rubbing up and down and I want her to grip. Just as she does, my fists close - one under her hair, one against the bed. This time they don't open until her hands make their way out of my pants.

Wet lips meet mine. I reach up for her breast, but she pushes my hand away. I open my eyes. She's smiling. "Just let me," she says.

_Damn._ She's pushing my jeans down and I help her out, maybe too fast, too eager. But for months, over half a year, the only hand I've come into was my own.

My boxers are off and she's finally gripping me, and my head is practically burrowing itself into the pillow as I make this grunt-groan sound.

"Bell-"

She kisses her name away, her hand sliding faster and I have to grab onto something so I twine my fingers into her hair at the back of her neck, pulling her even closer and our kiss becomes rough. We kiss harder and deeper as her hand strokes harder and faster. And I feel it. It's in my stomach and my thighs, and… I let go, pulsing into her hand, and I'm groaning into her mouth. And she still kisses me, keeps on kissing me while my breathing tries to calm down.

She lifts up, looking down at me just as she did at the very beginning. I push her hair away from her face and hold my hand there just as I did at the beginning. "This isn't right. I'm totally naked and you're fully dressed," I try to say, all out of breath. I'm surprised she understands me.

"It is right." She walks away and I'm too tired to ask her any questions. I just watch her go into the bathroom, hear water running, and watch her walk right back out with a towel. "Here."

I clean up while I watch her undress, but she turns her back to me as she unhooks her bra, so I look away. It isn't easy. My eyes go back and she's covered in a cottony nighty. It's all white and just like a sleeveless dress, except more see-through. I can't see everything, but the outline of her waist and hips are visible, her breasts. I smile all lazily at her, actually feeling the laziness of the smile. I toss the towel over by the door and pull her in close when she comes back to the bed. My eyes want to close.

We kiss long into the night until she pulls back, drags a hand down my face - I feel nails - and says, "You can go to sleep, Edward."

I slide my hand down her stomach over her hips to her thigh and start sneaking it under her nightgown. She catches my hand.

"Can't I just-"

"No."

"No?"

"Tomorrow night," she tells me. "Tonight is all for you. I told you I would make it up to you and I meant it. All you tonight." She kisses me once more and I lift up to meet her lips, before she rests her head against my chest and we sleep that way, on top of the covers. I bring my other arm around her.

.

In the morning, we're lucky we're both up, showered and dressed by the time Max hurricanes in.

"It snowed last night," he says. "Hi, Isabella!" He's clearly surprised to see her here, and I'm frozen where I stand as I spot him noticing Isabella's bag by the door, clothes spilling over like too much foam in a glass of Coke. He looks over at me. I don't mention that Isabella spent the night, but he's far from an idiot. Even at thirteen, he knows what's going on.

"Let's check it out," I say, my hand on Isabella's back, guiding her over to the window, desperate to change a subject that has only been communicated in facial expressions so far. I don't register that my hand is clawing at her sweater until I look down at it. I flatten my palm.

Snow covers the ground and the branches of trees, but that isn't what's drawn Isabella's attention. She's looking at the painting of Max I hung over by the front door, and I tell her about how I was hustled. She tells me I gotta be smarter than a thirteen year old.

"Thanks," I say.

Then she tells me she can take our pictures, me and Max together. "Out in the snow. That'll be beautiful."

Isabella pulls on her coat and boots. I pull on my coat and regular shoes.

The snow isn't very thick, so our feet barely sink into it at all as we follow Isabella's finger-point direction to stand under a fir tree and pine tree growing neck and neck. She shoots a few of us facing the camera, my arm over Max's shoulder, then tells us to do whatever.

Max gets this shady look on his face and starts firing snowballs at me. Isabella's snapping away and laughing like mad. When I accidentally beam Max right in the face, she laughs harder. He turns on her, launches some her way, scooping fast from the ground, patting them round - brown with dirt- and pitching, windup, and all.

Isabella spins around screaming. "Not the camera! Not the camera!"

I lift her from behind, kiss the back of her neck, even though her hair is all over the place. I let go of her with one arm so I can push that hair out of the way of my mouth.

"Gross," Max says.

I laugh against Isabella's neck, and knowing this turns her on, I feel a strain against my jeans. I have to let her go. This is too much with Max right here.

Esme comes out of the house with a tray in her arms and sets it down on the deck table. She waves us over.

"I had Jane fix you up some lunch."

"Thanks," Isabella and Max say simultaneously while I'm pretty much gawking at her. I snap out of it and thank her, too, before introducing her to Isabella. They shake hands and then Esme stands there like she wants to say more, or maybe she wants to be included or something. I take a seat next to Max, who's already biting into his sandwich. If Esme's waiting for an invitation, the only one about to extend it has his mouth full of bread, meat, and lettuce. She wipes her hands against her pants and walks away.

I catch up to her at the bottom of the deck steps, leaning one hand against the railing, and speak low. "Are you going to tell my dad that Isabella was here?"

"He's my husband," is her answer.

"All right, well, look." I point over at Max who's laughing at something Isabella said. They're both cracking up. "While you're at it, don't forget to tell him how happy she makes Max. Maybe it'll matter to him."

"Of course it will." She gives me a smile. I don't believe her, though. We can hope something like this would matter to my father, but hope is as far as it goes. Hope isn't reality. I read somewhere that hope can sometimes be interchangeable with denial. She starts to move away but I notice a hesitation. She turns back to me. "But-" she brings her fingernails to the edge of her lips "-he isn't sold on your girlfriend's motivations."

I can tell by the look on her face that she regrets saying this, and maybe it's in response to the look on my face. I narrow my eyes, pull my mouth tight, speak through my teeth. "You think she's faking that right now? She doesn't even know we're talking about her, doesn't know she's being watched. _Judged_." My hands are fisted by my sides.

"How positive are you of that?" She glances over at the table and I turn my head to the side, following. Isabella's looking at me and when our eyes make contact, she smiles.

I return to the table, kiss the side of Isabella's face out of some sort of guilt, family guilt. _What am I getting her into?_ I try to hide the burning in the back of my eyes, the burning in my throat that I think will be apparent if I say anything. I dig into my sandwich.

"Esme's nice and all," Max says, "but if Mom was here, she would've made lunch for us, not just brought out something Jane made."

"Yeah, she would've, buddy." My voice croaks like a frog's.

"Maybe this is one of those 'it's the thought that counts' situations," Isabella says.

I stare at her, maybe too long, maybe too harshly. She looks down, rubbing her palms along her jeans.

"Sorry. I - I know that's probably annoying."

"No, but you're right," I say, placing my hand on her knee, giving her a squeeze. "I'm just not sold on her motivations. That's all."

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

My dream of the man hidden in his cabin under the trees riles me from sleep, or so I think at first. It's some time during the middle of the night, my eyes blinking open in darkness, and I realize it was a groan of the door opening that woke me up. Footsteps. I see from the shadow-shape that it's him. Mud. I close my eyes, unable to look. I listen and wait for the sound of him backing out of the room, the door closing, but those sounds don't come.

Has he done this before, come into my room while I'm sleeping? He's closer now; I hear him take a breath as if he's been holding it. I count to ten in my head, see the numbers floating in blackness; they're tall and fancy with curves at their ends and they flash behind my eyes one after the other as if they're the only things in the world. But then a hand touches my face, rough, dry fingers on my cheek. And it's like the numbers were never there at all. I can't move. I'm as stiff as the bed frame I'm sleeping on. I might not even be alive. There's no breathing. Not from either of us.

And then he's gone.

My heart's a jackhammer. I open my eyes, get out of bed, stumble around dressing myself in the first things I find, and take off down the deck steps. I run. I round corners. I head straight. I turn again, my feet pounding. Eventually my legs slow down and I take the first real look at my surroundings, my chest heaving as I try to catch my breath. I traveled far, now on Cottonwood. If I kept going on this road, I'd end up on the main street, down by the river. I notice the light layer of snow on lawns, and the way it shines under the streetlamps. It's so pretty and it shouldn't be here. Nothing pretty should be here.

Exhausted, I fall onto the wet cement, patches of uglier snow beside me, dirty. I drop my head to my hands. I have nothing with me - not even my phone. After catching my breath, I start walking back the way I came.

The random car passes by, but nobody else is on the sidewalks. Of course not. Because, as usual, rain is expected. And as if my night isn't bad enough, drops like golf balls fall from the sky.

By the time I knock on James' window, my coat is soaked. It looks as if it's been tossed in the river and taken away by the current. And I'm just about as cold as that, shivering.

He's probably sleeping and I think he'll never hear my knock, but I knock anyway.

"James!" I call, banging harder.

Finally the window slides open.

"What's going on?"

I hoist myself up, my foot slipping against the house a couple of times, my hand smashing itself into the metal window frame so that I don't fall, and James lifts me the rest of the way through the window, my knees scraping along the sill.

My teeth chatter. My hand hurts and I look at it. "I need a bandaid."

"You're bleeding!" He leaves and comes back with wet tissues and a little pouch. He cleans my wound, and then unzips the pouch, pulling out a small bottle and a bandage. He rubs some kind of clear liquid on my palm that makes me gasp, but his fingers tighten on mine so I can't pull away, and that feels good. I keep my hand in his. Sticking the bandaid across the slit in my palm, he seals it up so tight not even air could possibly fit under there, and his finger still rubs back and forth over it as if he's not yet satisfied with his work. I look up at his face as he works on me; he's so concentrated and serious.

"Why didn't you call? I would've picked you up."

He removes my wet jacket, takes his whole comforter off his bed and wraps it around me.

I cling to it, my left hand a little stiff when I close my fingers around the fabric. I feel the pull of the bandage; it doesn't want to bend. "I didn't have my phone. And I didn't plan on coming here."

My teeth still chattering, I sit on his floor, cross-legged, wrapped in a comforter as if my head is sticking out of an anthill. A cotton anthill stuffed with batting.

He kneels beside me. He's wearing sweatpants and no shirt, and his hair is messy from resting heavy on a pillow. His eyes are a little heavy, too.

"Sorry I woke you."

"I was hardly asleep, don't worry about it. What happened?" He rubs my back through the blanket and I feel more the vibration of his touch than his actual touch. When I don't answer him, he goes to a drawer and pulls out a pair of sweats. "Here."

He turns around while I change. It takes me longer than it should because I'm shivering, but once they're on, I already feel warmer.

He replaces the comforter over his bed, pulls all the covers slightly back and says, "Come on. Get in."

Lying in his bed, I just now realize how tired I am. I close my eyes as he covers me with the bedding.

"Do you need anything?"

"Water, please."

"Sure thing."

When he comes back, he has to wake me. I sit up, drinking down the water in just a few swallows, and then I lie back down. James sits beside me.

"Are you warmer?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to talk to me?"

I shake my head no, but still I say, "Mud."

He's shaking his head over and over. "What did he do now?"

"He came into my room. He thought I was asleep and-"

"No!" James stands fast. "No."

"James." I sit up. "He didn't do anything, okay? He just came into my room. He thought I was asleep. Why would he come into my room? Does he watch me sleep? How often does he do that?"

"I don't know."

I touch my cheek in the spot Mud touched it and don't tell James about it. "My family is so weird. My whole life is weird. It all makes sense now."

"What makes sense?" He returns to the bed, rubbing my arm.

"I get why I'm an outcast. I really am weird. I mean, when you're weird you can't really see it, you're just you. But it's true. Everyone sees it."

He wraps an arm around me and I let my cheek rest on his shoulder.

"You're not weird. Everyone's always been wrong. You're better than anyone else at that school."

"No. It's true. Look at my family."

"It's not true."

I push away from him.

"I understand now. I understand perfectly why you could never love me. Who can blame you?"

"Victoria, stop." He frowns like he's angry at me. "You've got it wrong."

I laugh. "Right. Don't humor me."

"Victoria." He brings his hand to my face. "I-I I'm sorry, but…"

"What?"

He looks into my eyes, his eyelids heavy now for a reason other than sleepiness, his gaze falling to my lips, and he kisses me. It's the first real kiss he's ever given me. It's the kiss I've dreamed of for so long. It's the kiss faceless other girls have felt, but never me. Not me. And here I am, finally kissing him after all this time. I've loved him for so long, wished for this. And now? Am I supposed to feel lucky? I don't. I feel unlucky. I pull away from him and wipe my mouth off.

"What's wrong?"

I stare at him a minute, the concern in his eyes deepening. "I-I don't know. What are you doing? Why did you kiss me?"

He reaches to finger a curl and I close my eyes. "I'm sorry ."

"What's going on?" My voice is shaky when I say this. I'm both nervous and confused.

"I need you to know something." His fingertips slip down my face. "Open your eyes. Open your eyes."

I open my eyes to find his so close. "What? What do you need me to know?"

"That-" his thumb caresses my chin "-that I love you."

My breath catches as I look over the intense planes of his face, all matching the intensity in his words, his voice. "Are you serious, James? Are you serious about this or do you just feel sorry for me?"

"Victoria." He reaches out to me again, and I back away from his touch, all on impulse. "I've never been more serious about anything. I know this wasn't the best time to come clean, but I'm not taking it back. I love you."

"It took you so long. Why now? Why when I realize that my whole family is shit?"

"I wish I could go back to that day you told me you loved me. I'd say it back. I felt it. I felt it before that."

I feel my lips puckering up tight, and I release a couple of deep breaths through my nose.

"What?" His voice, soft and quiet. "What?"

"You don't know how many times I wished I could go back to that day and _not_ say it." I turn my face away from him.

"Don't. Don't say that." He places his hands on my shoulders to turn me so that I'm facing him again.

"What am I supposed to say? That's what I'm thinking. I'm saying what I'm thinking. Maybe you should try it more often."

"Okay." He nods, and his eyes are still serious, no hint of a smile. "Right now I'm thinking about how it takes everything I am every time I see you not to touch you and kiss you. That night when you were dosed, I thought I would lose it. You were all over me, and I almost, I almost just said fuck it all and kissed the hell out of you. I wanted to, so bad. And you kept dropping that towel, or the bed covers, and you wouldn't get dressed. You wanted me to touch you all night. You don't know. You'll never know what it took to stop myself from giving in to you."

I frown. "Should I thank you for that? Should that make me feel special?"

His hands drop from my shoulders.

"You didn't say it back when I told you. Months, James. Months. I've been miserable trying to get over you. You were the only person I trusted. _You._ And you lied to me. I knew telling you was a risk, but I took it. And it was so hard to get it out and I was so bare in front of you. As bare as those empty trees outside your window, and you covered yourself all up. You lied. _To me_."

"Please let me... give me another chance. I'll do it right. I'll be bare too, okay? Okay?"

"Everything has changed. You don't even know! Oh, my god. Oh, god." Tears fall. I cover my mouth and walk to the other side of the room, remembering the worst of it. The worst of this, of him not admitting his love for me.

"You don't love me anymore. I'm too late."

His hand touches the back of my shoulder and I spin around and my voice is so quiet. "You - You don't know what's happened. What I did just to - to get over you. All because of a lie. And it didn't even work."

"Wh - What did you do?" His voice is stiff, like he's not sure he wants the answer. But he's getting it.

"I gave up my virginity to get over you. I would've done anything to give it to you but you didn't want it."

Steps back and he bumps into his own desk like he's forgotten where he is. If we were to reach toward each other our fingers would touch, and still, the space between us is as great as the forest.

"Fuck." It's a whisper I barely hear - in fact I didn't hear it; I only saw the word form on his lips.

Shock or something wears off and he steps toward me, pulling me into his arms, his hand on the back of my head, holding me to his chest, whispering apologies, repeating them over and over.

"Don't touch me!" I squirm away from him. "You didn't want to touch me before so you don't get to touch me now!"

"I've fucked up. I've fucked up bad, Victoria. That isn't even right. I more than fucked up." He reaches for my arms, pulls back.

"What does that mean? What does 'I fucked up' mean, James?" I want him to say it, to put into words just what he did.

"It means-" he aligns his eyes with mine "-it means I made the worst decision of my life when I decided not to tell you that I loved you. And I did. I do. I love you now, I loved you then, and I wanted you, and I get why that's hard for you to believe. I know that. But if I wanted you, I knew I'd have to get my life on track." He hands me my shoes. "Put these on. Let me show you something." He pulls his sweatshirt over his head.

Shoes on, I ignore his offered hand but follow him to his back porch, where he removes the top of one of the railing beams.

"Look inside."

All I see is insulation. "I don't see anything."

"That's right. Nothing. It's all gone. No more selling. I knew what I had to do to get my life on track for you. I wasn't in the position to do that yet. But now I'm done. Completely. And forever. If my mom loses this job then she'll have to come up with something because I'm done being_ that_."

I reach up to touch his face. His eyes close. And his own hand holds mine against him.

"You're not selling anymore?"

He shakes his head and his eyes open, making contact with mine. "Promise."

"I didn't ask you to stop."

"You didn't have to."

"But James-" I pull my hand away, and peer down at my open palm, fingering over the bandage there. When I press on it, the cut underneath hurts. I walk back into his house, back into his room.

He shuts the door behind him.

I turn around and face him. His eyebrows knit together. He looks worried, and he should. "I don't understand why you lied. You said you didn't love me."

"I never said that." He's shaking his head, and my eyes squint - maybe resembling the slit in my hand - as I try to remember. "I said we weren't right for each other. I've never said that I don't love you."

"But you let me think it. You know you let me think that. Why? Why didn't you just ask me to wait for you to get on track? I would've waited if that was what you wanted. Why did you let me believe a lie?"

"I saw no way out of it yet, and I wanted you to do better than me. My dad-" he averts his eyes "-he ripped my mom to shreds." His eyes come back to mine. "You've been through too much. I couldn't ever - And I did lie that day in your room. I said that we weren't right for each other, but the truth is, I wasn't right for you. You'll never be anything but right for me."

"Why did you do this? You're so wrong. Think about why you were selling. What would've happened if you didn't?"

He shrugs.

"You and your mom would've been homeless, James._ Homeless._ So, selling isn't right, and it probably isn't the only way, but it was the only way you saw. You weren't looking at all you were, you were only looking at one part of you, the selling. What about the rest? The rest of the James deserves me, deserves everything."

He shakes his head at me.

"Yes. And now, because you couldn't just be honest with me, or tell me to wait, or whatever, what's going to happen with us?"

He has tears in his eyes, too, when he speaks next. "My feelings for you won't go away. It's thinking about you. Just thinking about you is enough to make me insane. I messed too much up. But listen, you don't have to go anywhere, or love me. Like I said once before, it's not love or nothing for me. Stay here tonight. Nothing has to happen. I don't expect a thing."

"I can't."

"I'll sleep on the floor."

I shake my head.

"I'll sleep in the living room. On the couch."

"I'm so mad at you, James. Do you know what I want to do? I want to walk away from you and never look back."

"Don't do that." Tears fall from his eyes and maybe I want that. This boy I've never seen cry, I now want to see him cry over me the way I cried over him. And he is; he's truly crying - for the first time in front of me. From the beginning of this conversation, I've felt the razor blades inside me grow sharper and sharper, and it hurts so much right now that I wrap my arms across my stomach, and I want him to hurt, too. This much - as much as I do.

"And I don't need you anymore. I don't have to stay here. I can go to Isabella's."

"Is that-" he licks his lips, looks away, eyes leaking tears, looks back "-is that what you're going to do?"

"Do you know who has my virginity?"

He goes over to his window, rests his forehead against it, his shoulders slumped and shaking.

"Guess."

"Why?"

"Guess."

"Because it'll hurt to say it?"

"Yes, go ahead. Guess."

"Riley."

"No."

"Cullen?"

"Jasper." I spit his name from my lips like a weapon. James spins around, his eyes darting. I know he's remembering the sketch and he's realizing it really meant something this whole time. This is worse for him than anyone else's name I might have said, and I might be smiling.

When his eyes meet mine his lips quiver and I twist my knife deeper. "He was gentle, careful, and he held me tight, James, so tight. He held me in a way that you never have."

He sinks down to his bed like his legs can no longer hold him up. I see him just about collapse, head in his hands, and I see how far I've gone to hurt him, on purpose. And it worked. And I'm no longer smiling. My heartbeat reminds me how alive I am, how awful this moment is, and what I just did to James. On purpose. My breathing stops. My stomach churns. My heart drops. I think if I open my mouth I might vomit my heart right out of my body. My shaky hand covers my mouth, the mouth that let out the cruelest words I've ever said to anybody. And I said them to James.

"Victoria." His voice is deep and distant and cold. He's staring down at the floor. Without even lifting his head he points to the door. "Go to Isabella's. I can't hear any more."

And so I leave.

There's no sound but my movement as I change back into my jeans, pull on my wet coat and walk out.

I'm walking in the dark toward Isabella's street. The rain has turned to snow, but it has no effect on me. I get three blocks before car lights come from behind me, the car pulls over and someone gets out. I know it's him. He takes my hand and spins me around.

"How tight?" He pulls me into his arms and I let him.

"Tighter."

His hold tightens and it's already tighter than the way Jasper held me but I say it again. "Tighter."

I can barely breathe and he isn't either. He kisses the top of my head. "I love you, Victoria. I love you and I'm so sorry about what I did to you. I'd take it all back if I could, every second that I let you feel miserable." His voice is laden with the sound of tears. "So sorry. If you need to punish me, punish me. I can take it. I _will_ take it."

His cries are silent. And he keeps kissing my head. With an arm around me I let him take me back to his house. He clicks his car alarm on and leaves his car parked at the curb right where it is. We walk back to his house and back to his room. I'm slow and reluctant to leave his embrace but I know that I have to. I'm too weak when I'm in his arms.

We both drop our coats to the floor. And we both still have snow in our hair.

"We're not together."

He nods.

"And you're sleeping in the living room."

All of a sudden warmth soaks my face and I sink to his bed, crying into my hands, everything catching up at once. I feel heat next to me, an arm around me guiding me to a shoulder, a hand rubbing my back. I sob and sob.

"Okay," a whisper, "okay."

My head is in the crook of his shoulder as I continue to cry; he rubs circles on my back and lets me cry until I'm done. A few times I pull away thinking the crying is over, but when I look at him it starts again.

He rests his forehead down against mine and I'm probably rattling his head with all my sobs. His hand comes to my shoulder, sliding up my neck to my face, and back down to my shoulder. He's silent now while I cry. I stop and look at him, and start again. I stare at him through my tears and he blinks away his.

My head's on his shoulder again, and when I finally stop crying I lift my head and he kisses my forehead, and then apologizes for it.

"No, I'm not sorry for that kiss, but I shouldn't have kissed you earlier. Not after what happened at your house tonight. But I couldn't take all that stuff you were saying about yourself. Couldn't hear it or think you believed it for a second longer."

"Whatever - might as well get everything out in the open at once." I wipe my face dry. "Why not? Why wait? I wouldn't be surprised if we discover your dad's my dad or something."

"Don't say that. I can't even think about a world where you're my sister."

He pulls slightly away and looks down at me. When our eyes meet a few more tears get away from me. He wipes them off. "I'm sorry. Okay? _I'm sorry_."

"Okay."

Eventually I climb under his covers, he caresses around and down my hair and says goodnight. He leaves the room and for the first time I sleep alone in his bed. I think about how James just told me he loved me and how here I am in his bed. Without him. I've dreamed of that moment so many times, and never in my dreams did I ever end up alone in his bed. My fingers make their way to my lips and I find myself trying to remember James' kiss. I was so preoccupied with the what's and why's that I never stopped to feel it. I don't even know what it felt like. And thinking of James in the same house, sleeping in a different room, I have to fight the urge to go to him, to invite him back here, to have him hold me while I hold him in return. I turn around, facing the wall, ignoring the pull to James that's keeping me from sleep. I take heavy breaths and curl up into a ball.

There are teeth on my heart, biting.

Is this what love is?

Love swallows you whole first and then chews you up.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

*Just in case you don't know: KP = kitchen patrol or kitchen pick-up. It's a term often used during grade school camp. (Edward uses this term early on in this chapter.)

* The author who suggested hope can be interchangeable with denial is one of my favorites, Michael Chabon.

Thank you readers, reviewers, tweeters, rec'ers! I also have to thank myimm0rtal for her ninja beta skills, and Ireen H and Thimbles for their honesty and support.


	20. Shards

**In the Debris**

** Shards**

**Edward**

"What do you want to do when you grow up?" Her voice is teasing, but I think it's a serious question. She's sitting on her knees on my bed wearing that nightgown again because I asked her to. I'm slouched against the headboard in just my sweats with my hands behind my head, trying not to explore the possibility of making out the shape of her nipple through the white fabric. I don't know why she wants to talk right now when we could be tearing each other's clothes off, but she seems to, so we are.

"My dad wants me to be a doctor. But, no way. Truth is, I don't know." I sit up straighter, my arms falling to my sides. "And I hate that everyone just expects you to have all the answers. I tell them I'll major in business just to shut them up, and maybe that'll be it. Maybe music."

She smiles and picks up my fingers. "Yeah, music."

"My dad would hate that." I shake my head. "He'd probably disown me if I ever told him about it."

"What would your mom have said?"

I let out a sigh and rub over my eye with the base of my palm. "Doesn't matter, does it?"

She looks uncomfortable with my question, shifting around so that her legs are flat out in front of her. Her toenails are blood red, I notice for the first time. When I wrap a hand around her calf she breaks her silence. "Well, I mean, doesn't it?"

I stare at her and she doesn't look away. I shrug. "She'd tell me to go for it."

This makes Isabella's lips grow from a small grin to a wide smile that I can no longer resist kissing. "Come here." I tug on her leg until she's crawling over to me and I take her hips, positioning her on my lap. My hands move up and down her sides. Her body. I want it.

"I want you to strum on your guitar," she says.

"I want to strum on you."

We kiss, her hair falling down around us. I feel it on my shoulders and chest.

I lift her nightgown up and off of her. She shivers when my hands slide along the outsides of her raised arms. She reaches to turn off the light. I don't say anything, but grasp her fingers before they land on the lamp switch, and I start kissing her arm from the inside of her elbow to her shoulder. I want the light on. I want to see her.

I turn us around so that she's on her back, my hips between her legs, my mouth traveling her throat, her breast, her stomach, and I pull her panties off, planting kisses over one of her legs along the way. While I'm standing at the edge of the bed, I step out of my sweatpants, quick to get back to her lips, and her knees come up on either side of me. My hips push into her and she lets out this gasp sound that's a little high-pitched and so girl. I want to make that sound come out of her again. I try, unsuccessfully.

I turn onto my back, pulling Isabella on top of me and she lays herself down, skin against skin, to kiss me. I roll us over again, and between her legs I grind. I kiss circles around each of her breasts, and finally I hear that sound again as her back arches. I smile.

I remove my boxers, and on top of Isabella I lean to the side to reach for a condom on my nightstand.

I put it on. I kiss her like crazy - her lips, along her cheekbone, around her ear, her throat, her chest, her breast, and her lips again. We're one hundred percent naked against each other, and I can feel myself between her legs. My breathing is hard. Fast.

"Edward," she says maneuvering her face from mine. I kiss her throat. "Edward, slow down, slow down."

I stop kissing and look at her, sliding a hand up the side of her body to her breast, moving slow to get there, so I think I've slowed like she asked me to, but she says it again.

"Slow down."

"What's wrong?" I move off of her, lying on my side. I'm afraid that if I don't, I won't be able to be as slow as she wants me to. For some reason I'm not getting this right for her.

She doesn't answer me, and when I look over her body, I have to look away. I have this feeling of looking at something I'm not supposed to see. It's as if I'm spying on her. I never have trouble looking at anyone I'm about to fuck. What's different here? And with Isabella? Why can't I look at her? Except that this is different. What I'm about to do with her would not be considered fucking. And then there's this other thing I caught - how she subtly covered herself when my gaze lingered at her breasts, like she didn't want me looking. When my eyes come back to her face, hers are averted.

"Bella?"

Her eyes meet mine, but only for a second before they're gone again.

I bring my fingers to the side of her head. "My Bella?" I say, and this time her eyes focus on my lips. "Isabella, look at me." When my eyes catch hers, I try to keep them there. "Are you nervous?"

"No."

I run my hand along her waist and she stiffens, her eyes closing. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You're nervous."

She shakes her head.

I kiss her, my hand coming to the side of her breast. I know she still isn't relaxed.

"Why are you nervous? I don't get it."

She doesn't answer.

"You don't have to be nervous. It's me."

She sighs, her hand finding my face, all fingertips, kind of rubbing back and forth with her nails. "It's because it's you."

"I'm making you nervous? Why?"

"Just forget it."

"Because I'm going too fast? I'll slow down. How slow do you want? Tell me. I'll be like a snail." I smile at her.

When I put my fingers on her stomach, I feel her stiffen again.

"Isabella, something's up."

"I'm - I - because I have to tell you something."

I rub a thumb along her eyebrow. "What?"

"There's something you don't know."

"So tell me, and then I'll know." I kiss her and wait.

When she tells me, it's in a voice I can barely hear. "I've never done this before."

There's no doubt I've heard wrong. "Wh - you're - you - what?"

She repeats it, and I sit up.

"_What?_"

She isn't meeting my eyes.

"This isn't right. I should've known this." I take off the condom and chuck it in the trash beside the bed. I shove a hand through my hair, my elbow on my knee, and let out a breath.

"I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You didn't ask. And I couldn't say it."

"All this time we've known each other, you couldn't have said it?"

She puts her hand on my shoulder, her finger making little circles. "I've heard the rumors. I knew what you thought. I should've told you a long time ago; too much time had passed and I couldn't bring it up. I wanted to tell you, I just couldn't."

"Why not?"

She blows a breath out and looks up at the ceiling. "Being a virgin was never a big thing for me. I never made this big decision to hold onto it or anything. It just was. Me." Her eyes are meeting mine now. "But when it became this sort of lie, or grew into this huge thing, it made me so nervous. So I thought that maybe if I waited. You know, until after we… and then I could just be like, 'You were my first.' I don't know. I thought that would make it easier to say."

"Didn't you think I might figure it out before that?"

"How would I know?"

My head reels. Isabella, a virgin? And the thought hasn't once occurred to me. What Alice said about Newton. And knowing Newton well enough. Jasper and his sketch and his: _She earned it_. But that was all assumption.

Her finger rubs my shoulder, drawing my attention back. "I want you to be my first. Aren't you at least a little happy that you're going to be my first?"

Absolutely, I'm happy to be her first. But then another thought: if this is going to be her first time, it can not be like this. Me angry, her trying to explain herself. No matter how frustrated I am, I can't let her first time be like this. She's put this responsibility on me, but so have I. I believed in things I heard without ever asking her for confirmation. I let it all be too easy to believe. I've fallen for her and if not tonight, eventually this would happen. I let my anger hide somewhere inside. There will be time for that later. This is definitely not the time for anger.

I bring my hand to her face. There's a worried crinkle in the middle of her eyebrows. I touch that spot. I keep my voice as controlled and soft as I can. "Do you want to stop?"

She shakes her head. She seems very shy. This is a different glimpse of Isabella I'm getting, and I remember the bracelets, and I realize there's still a lot about this girl I don't know. I no longer have to control my anger. It's gone. I'm now overcome with the need to protect her.

"Do you want to keep going?"

"I do," she says in a voice somewhere in between timid and sure.

I start kissing her, going as soft and slow as I can.

"We're starting over, okay?"

I slide my hand down her body between her breasts, down the center of her stomach. She opens her mouth, a quiet gasp.

I kiss her again all over her body, but slow this time. I kiss her lips, her chin, the line of her neck, follow the curve of her breast. I kiss the spot where her waist meets the rise of her hips. Perfect. I move around to her stomach, kissing across, just below her belly button. She squirms, letting out a faint sound from her throat, and I know she's relaxed, and even turned on.

Taking my shoulders, she tugs on me until we're side by side again. Her fingers trail down my chest, my stomach, and I know exactly what she's going for. I can feel my erection expanding before she even touches it, thumb circling the tip. She strokes with her fingers and I fall to my back, facing the ceiling, my breath catching somewhere in my chest, right where she's now leaning over me, kissing. Her hand grips, and there's a sort of massaging going on that makes it hard for me to bring myself to stop her. I have to stop her, though. This is about her. Her first time. And then it really dawns on me what this means - this is her first time, her _only_ time. And it's with me. No Jasper. No Newton. Never. This electric sort of surge runs through me, and I want her more than ever before. It's going to take a huge amount of concentration on my part, but she's giving herself to me here, so I'm giving back. I'm doing it all for her. Just her.

I take over, kissing her until she's on her back again. My hands explore, both gentle and then a little rougher, and my lips and tongue do the same. I listen to her breathing, pay attention to her body movements, trying to teach myself what she really likes, not just what I expect her to like. This has to be all her. If I'm reading her right, she seems to like it more gently, so I give her that. Soft kisses, a touch of the tongue, and I'm settled between her legs again; her hips are rising against me.

"Edward, are you this sweet with all your girls?"

"No. No, I'm not." I want her to know she's special, and to know that she's special to me. But I realize what I'm admitting by saying no - _all your girls_. "You're my only girl. Just you."

Her knees come up on either side of me. I kiss my way down and back up her body, not neglecting her breasts on my way to her lips. I take my time. Her hands are in my hair, and then they're reaching behind her, reaching for something. The headboard?

I'm way past ready for her and I hope she's ready, too. I slide on a new condom, and as her hands rest light on my shoulders, I begin to enter her. I enter slow and it's tight enough that I know I'm hurting her.

"Wait," she says, her voice strained, her hands now clawing at my shoulders, and I don't think I'm even halfway in. I stop and kiss the side of her face.

She adjusts her legs. "Okay."

I move a little farther in, kind of scared now because of how she's stopped me once. I pause, but she says nothing, so I sink in more. I think I'm three-quarters in when she tells me to wait again.

"Sorry," she says.

"Shh. Just tell me when you're ready." It's hard to get the words out. I can't even call it a whisper. My hand is digging into the bed, the muscles in my arms shaking as I conjure up the strength it takes not to move, not to plunge.

"Okay. Go. Go. I'm okay."

When I can tell I'm all the way inside her, I freeze again, forcing myself not to move when that's all my body is dying to do. _Move_, my hips seem to be yelling at me. _Go_, and I twitch.

"How are you?" I ask, and it sounds as if I've been holding my breath for weeks.

Her laugh, she has no idea what that does to me. "I'm good. You?"

Me? I go for it. But I keep it gentle. She's still very stiff and I think there's still pain. I wish there was something I could do to make it not hurt.

When I feel her hips lift, I'm relieved because I take this as a hint that she's in less pain. She wants me to move now.

There's no speed to what I'm doing, and it's very rhythmic. The control I have at this moment is something to brag about. That is, until she reaches to meet my movements. I've been so preoccupied with making this about her, giving Isabella what I think she wants, that I underestimate what she can do to me. Every nerve in my body is alive with Isabella. By the time my head catches on to what my body's feeling, I'm losing control, already breathing too hard, hips going too fast, and there's a tightening in my stomach that pushes my breaths out even faster. I try to stop it, hold it back but I know it's too late. There's no stopping it. My entire lower body is pulsing. It all ends with a groan. It's the tightness, I tell myself. It's virginal Isabella, I tell myself. But, no, it's Isabella.

I bury my face in her hair, hiding, shamed and disappointed with myself for finishing so fast.

"I'm sorry."

"What?" She lifts my face. "Why? It's supposed to hurt." I feel her thumb tracing my cheek.

"I swear. I swear to you, Bella, I can last longer than that. Or, I think I can." I'm not sure of myself anymore. Isabella's different.

"You didn't like it?"

Is she serious? Are we in the same bed having the same conversation? I recognize now that it must be my demeanor, my disappointment in myself that makes her feel unsure about my experience.

I push away the ends of her hair that are trapped in the stubble and sweat on my face. I look her in the eyes. "I liked it. Couldn't you tell? I thought I had such control, but I had none. No control. Because of you."

"Okay."

"Next time will be better."

"Edward, I think you're forgetting that I've never done this before. I have nothing to compare it to. You could tell me that was the best sex ever and I'd believe it."

"It was." I smile. "On my end, it was."

"Same here."

I laugh, hard, and the way she responds with a gasp reminds me I'm still inside of her. I pull out. "Isabella Swan, never change."

I toss the condom in the garbage before bringing her close to me, her face mashing into my shoulder, her hair covering me.

"It couldn't have been the best for you, though. I don't even know what I'm doing and-"

"It was."

"How?"

I move her hair out of her face, buying myself some time. I can do this. I can talk about this. And after a deep breath, I do. "It's usually just body. All body." I pause to think, to kiss her. "This was the first time it was in my head, too." I give her another kiss. "My heart." And as I say it, my heartbeat speeds up, and I shake my head. What is she doing to me? What has she done to me? She ties me up in knots and makes me come before I know it, before I have time to even try to stop it. She makes me laugh like no one else and makes my eyes burn when I think about the possibility of ever losing her.

"Aw, Edward…" She lifts up to kiss me. I take in a breath of her, and I could breathe her in a million times, repeat what we just did a million times, and still not get enough.

She scoots to lie on her stomach, her arm up between us, hand under the pillow. I look over at her bare shoulders, can see the side of her breast pressed against the mattress and I want to run my finger along her softness there, but I resist.

"I'm glad I moved here."

"Me, too."

"I'm glad we met the way we did."

"Me, too."

"I'm glad you love me."

"You are?" I bring my palm to her face.

She nods. "I love you, too, Edward. Even if you are a prince."

I kiss her for finally admitting she loves me, and I ignore the clench in my chest at her calling me a prince. After the kiss, I ask, "Do you really see me as a prince?" I couldn't have anyone looking at me like that, least of all Isabella.

"No, I was joking. I don't see you that way, but your dad does."

"Yeah, I guess he does. Or he wishes I was that way, anyhow."

She settles herself against my shoulder and my arm circles her tighter, pulling her stomach against my side.

"Bella? How about if you tell me you love me again, but without the prince part?"

She lifts up, looks down at me and gives me a coy smile. "I love you, Prince Edward." She laughs. "That has a nice ring to it."

"If you keep calling me that, I'll have to call you Princess Bella, because it's only right. Or Princess Izzy-B. That has a kind of ring to it, too."

"All right, all right. I love you, Edward Cullen. I love you." She kisses me, and I open my mouth to her.

"Much better," I say against the kiss.

She breaks away from me. "I didn't mean to make a joke of it really, but you aren't the only one who gets nervous. Talking."

"You're shy sometimes," I tell her, as if she doesn't know. But it's new to me.

"Yeah, sometimes. I used to be a lot shier. I've learned how to talk myself out of it, telling myself they're just people. Just people. But sometimes, in some situations, it comes back."

I lean over her and kiss her. We kiss for a long time before we go to sleep. I pull her into my arms, and she squirms into me, her butt rubbing my crotch. I get a face full of her hair, breathing some through my nose. I push it aside and kiss the back of her neck, and then, just because it's soft, I kiss her neck again.

"I love you," I tell her even though she already knows. It's something that should be said after her first time. And there's this strange relief for me that her first time ever was with someone who loves her.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Sometimes your days take a shape, one you recognize, one you can count on, lines meeting or curving in the right places, a shape that's predictable and brings confidence with it. You know yourself. You're familiar with your life.

Other times the shape of your day is unrecognizable and it keeps shifting and changing, not solid but a vapor, like smoke. It curves and stretches and corkscrews and spirals and is always-changing, never the same, and lines never meet, and nothing is predictable and you're not even sure you know yourself. Your life could be someone else's.

James' fingers on my cheek wake me. My eyes flutter open. I look at him, his bloodshot eyes, and there's a language written on his face that I don't speak, and I know my day is already out of shape.

"My mom knows you're here. She's making breakfast."

"I don't want to see her. I don't want her asking questions."

"I didn't tell her anything."

He's kneeling on the floor, eyes level with mine as my head still rests on his pillow, and we stare at each other. I wonder if, like me, he's thinking back on our reckless night. The tension between us is so huge. James and I fill up this room and nobody else can fit inside, and if they tried, they'd have to push their way in and they'd feel strangled by us.

Maybe James is feeling strangled. He starts to leave.

"James?" I sit up; he turns around. "I'm not going to punish you. I mean, not anymore. I shouldn't have said what I said last night. It was worse than what you did, what you didn't say. And I'm sorry about that. I'm sorry I hurt you on purpose."

He wipes at his eyes with his thumb. His voice is strained. "It's so easy to say what you don't mean, isn't it? And so hard to say what you do."

All I can do is nod while something mixes up in my stomach like a blender turned on. Nobody understands me more than James does. What he's just said sounds like it could've come from my mouth, my brain.

I hesitate before letting out what I have to say next - hesitant to bring up Jasper again, and James is looking at me like he knows I have more to say, waiting.

"It isn't your fault that I slept with Jasper. I mean, if you had just told me the truth, it never would've happened. But the fact that it did happen under whatever circumstances, that was my decision. That was my bad decision. All mine."

He sits on the bed beside me. "Victoria." His fingers trace up and down my arm. "I don't want to hear about that." Tears are in his eyes, but he holds them back. "I know my part in it, but that… it tears me up. I just think, _why him_? You know who he is, what he does. And I can't even think about it. Don't want to know."

I'm getting defensive again. I want to remind him how he tore me up, but I swallow it. He isn't talking about me sleeping with just anybody. It's Jasper.

"Ever since you told me, I can't stop seeing that sketch - like it's burned into my brain."

"It's gone," I tell him and his eyes shift to mine. "It doesn't exist anymore."

He gives a couple of heavy nods, his lips slipping inside his mouth.

I scoot over. "Do you want to lie down?"

He climbs under the covers and we lie like we always have as friends, facing, not touching. But I reach for his arm and pull it over me as I turn my back to him, and then he's got both of his arms around me, tucking me in, holding me close, his body molded behind mine, his face in my hair, and this is what I've wanted to feel for so long. The breath that I let out brings with it all my longing, hoping, and disappointment. So much can be felt in one breath, seen.

"Never lie to me about your feelings again," I say. "Never again."

He squeezes me tighter. "I won't." And he lets out a deep breath and I wonder what this breath held for him, what it released.

I don't know what's going to happen between us because of all that's changed, trust broken, feelings hurt, but this - us lying here like this - for now, I relish.

James' mom knocks and calls from behind the door that breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. I sit up and borrow James' phone to send my aunt a text, letting her know where I am. James puts a hand on my hip, pressing me close to him. I turn and look, and he gives me an almost smile. I return it.

In the bathroom I use the toothbrush James keeps in a drawer for me. Then I stand in my bra and panties in front of the full-length mirror over the door. I look thinner. With a wet, soapy washcloth, I wipe myself down, under my neck, my armpits, behind my knees. I'll save showering for when I get home because I don't have a change of underwear.

The bandage on my hand is damp. I rip it off and drift a finger over the slice. It's no longer bleeding, but it isn't healed. Not completely. Not yet. I close my hand and open it. The slice tenses and pulls. It's still fragile and if I'm not careful, it could open up again. I bring my hurt palm to my heart. I have to be careful.

The wound is scratchy against my chest.

I open the medicine cabinet for the little blue pouch with the band-aids inside and and replace my bandage, replace my clothes, tie my hair back, and meet James and his mother at the dining table. I can smell the soap on me, and my skin is a little sticky in places where I wasn't successful at rinsing it completely off.

I greet his mother who, while her hair is styled over her shoulders and her face is made up, is wearing her bathrobe and slippers.

"How are Cheri and Phil?" she asks, opening a napkin with such care it's as if she's handling a cloud, placing it over her lap. I look at James.

"They're fine," he says. "Hey Mom, did you ever know Victoria's mom?"

I love the way he changes the subject. And now I'm tuned in to his mother like I'm trying to make out the lyrics on a static-filled radio station, waiting for - hoping for - a yes.

"No." She scoops scrambled eggs onto her plate. My face drops. "I've never met her." She adds salt and pepper. "But your father might have." She mixes it into her egg. "He's talked about her before like he knows her." How can she say all of this so nonchalantly, like it means nothing, like we're talking about how the weatherman might have answers about the weather?

James and I trade a glance and I pick up my sausage link with my fingers and take a bite, averting my eyes to the table, the bread basket, fresh biscuits inside. The chewed up sausage has a taste in my mouth, not like sausage, but something else. The taste of possibility. The taste of answers.

I won't think about the fact that James' dad might have answers. I won't. Except that those thoughts can't be chased away - no others will settle solidly enough in my mind to replace them. The new thoughts flow in and out like smoke. But the fire remains.

_James' dad might know my mom._

_Does he?_

It's all I can think about. I turn those thoughts into a cat, easily chased away by a dog. Where is the dog?

While James showers, I help clean up the kitchen, lost in my own head, trying to make up a poem about a happy dog chasing a cat. And the cat should be scared. I want the cat to be scared and keep running, only it doesn't. It won't be chased. It turns around and hisses, arches its back, raises its black fir, and bats its paw. And the dog backs away.

_Does his dad know my mom?_

In his room, dressed in jeans and an old ratty T-shirt, with hair still shower-wet, James is nervous. He's trying to roll a joint with unsteady fingers. "It's not for sale," he says as I watch him fumble with the paper. "It's my personal stash."

I go over and put my hand on top of his. He stills.

"I wouldn't ask you to talk to you dad, James." As much as I want him to, there's no way I would ever ask that of him.

He turns to me. "I'm - I'll - I'm going to ask my mom to ask him." He shakes his head. "But I don't know. Would he tell her everything?"

"It doesn't matter. There are other people in this town we can ask. Forget about your dad and what he might know. He probably doesn't know anything anyway."

He flips my hand over and fingers over the bandage like he did last night. There's a hitch in my breath that travels at light speed to my stomach where it gets trapped.

"Does it hurt?" he asks, his voice quiet and forced as if he's also trying to find his breath.

"Not as much. It feels stiff." I look up at him and he's looking right into my eyes. Deep inside. And the breath that's been locked in my stomach is released and leaps to my heart.

He pulls my arms around his waist and wraps his arms over my shoulders. I fall into him, my forehead and nose against his shoulder, my hands clasped behind his back.

"What happens with us now?" he asks.

"I don't know." My voice is muffled by his T-shirt. By him.

"Is the poem over?"

I laugh because he keeps talking so much like me, and I turn my head alongside his shoulder so that I can breathe easier. "Well, right now my latest poem is about a dog haplessly chasing a cat. I think it has a ways to go." But I know what he really meant by his question. "Let's just see," I say.

"Let's just see." He repeats my words in a low, monotone voice, as if he's trying to make out their meaning. And really, what do they mean? "Like you said once, friends before anything else, right?"

We disentangle from each other. "Are you going to smoke that?" I ask.

"Down to the bones of my fingers." He finishes rolling it. "Why? Did you want one, too?" He seals it up and sticks it between my lips. He lights it up.

I take a hit.

"So, why can't your dog catch your cat?"

He takes a hit.

"The dog wasn't trying to catch the cat. The dog was simply trying to chase it away. The cat's too stubborn, but I think the dog's making his comeback. He's got the power now."

"Why's that?" he says with a line of smoke that dissolves into nothing.

"Because of you."

"You don't make any sense." He slips the joint back into my mouth. "Am I the cat or the dog in this scenario?"

"You're more like the pavement."

He frowns at me and then cracks up. The light in his eyes when he smiles like he is now is like reflections of a sun that isn't even present. And it's like I can view us from above, looking down at the two people below, and they're easy. The tension is gone. And maybe it went out with the smoke, or maybe it was the few words that needed to be spoken. But right now this girl and boy I see look like they don't have a problem in the world. And the shape of my day just morphed itself again.

"Victoria?" He sits down on his bed. "Are you going to tell your aunt about Mud?"

"James, don't-"

"No. I know you don't want to talk about this, but I can't let you go back there if you're afraid of him and you won't tell anyone."

Telling Aunt Cheri? What would that do to her? I start sweating just thinking about it. I lift my ponytail up, getting the hair off my back, and I twist it and twist it into a bun and tuck the ends underneath. Still, when I let go, it unravels. "I don't know."

"Then stay here until you know."

"I can't stay here without answering questions. My aunt would never let me. She'd probably come and get me. I'll just..." I look down at him. "I'll just do what I've been doing, avoid Mud, and I'll lock my door when I go to bed at night." My cheek starts to tingle where my uncle touched me. I can't tell James about that touch. He'd never let me go back. I pick up his hand and lift it up to my cheek. And I tell him about it in my own, silent way.

But this is a language he doesn't speak, and he sees something else in this action. Something that makes him smile.

And the day's shape, once again, changes form.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Thank you for reading!

I get fast and tremendous help from myimm0rtal, Ireen H and Thimbles - thank you, girls!

Capricorn75, you're a love!

And thank you readers for reading, reviewing, tweeting, rec'ing!

Also: I'm donating a new E/B one-shot to Fandom4TwiFanG. Details can be found here: fandom4twifang . blogspot . com


	21. Shattered

**In the Debris**

**Shattered**

**Edward:**

My mother's met Isabella, and she loves her. Why wouldn't she? She's in the kitchen, cooking us dinner - Isabella, Max, me, and she's singing or humming. I don't recognize the tune; I believe she's making it up as she goes, and it's birdlike and perfect. Her hair is long and dark brown, and looking at it, I understand the darkness is also coming; I see it ahead of me. In the dark, everyone's gone, especially my mother, although I can still hear her. She's all I can hear and she's saying,_ Edward, be careful_, and I'm crying. I'm awake now, still hearing my mother's voice and thinking,_ Were those them? Were those her last words?_ And I'm becoming aware of Isabella in my bed, and thinking, _Not in front of her_. But it's happening and she knows. Her lips are on my eyelids.

_What's the matter?_ I hear her say, but I can't answer.

_Edward, what is it?_ And she's kissing other parts of my face. I open my eyes and I decide to tell her the truth. I'm going to be that whiney eighteen year old who cries for mommy.

_It's a dream,_ I say. _My mom_. And then there's sobbing. I think it could be coming from her because we're so close that she's shaking too, but I know it's me. She pulls me to her chest, and she's still naked, and my tears are on her breasts, and I can feel her heart's rhythm. And I think she's all I have in this world, she and Max. But she's right here, and I'm holding her tight, hugging her, my head moving to her stomach, her soft stomach, and I allow her to comfort me. She's the first person to comfort me since I lost my mother, the first person I _let_ comfort me, and it feels so good. Nothing's felt better. And I think: _The only way to feel this good is to have lost your mother and have the person you love comfort you._ And I think of how horrible that is, to have to be so low you're almost buried underground yourself in order to feel this good.

I've been kissing her stomach and don't even know it. Her fingers are in my hair, circling my scalp, and it's more comfort. I kiss her again - now aware - and up her body to her breasts. Her breathing shallows, she's enjoying it, and I keep it going.

My mouth is on the slope of her shoulder. I want to be inside of her. Things are going too fast, but I have this need and it's throbbing and she's opened her legs and I can feel her against me and it's almost painful, this need.

She has to remind me to get a condom. My brain is gone. I never would've thought of it.

I reach quickly to my drawer and pull one out, rip it open, roll it on, and I'm ready and I hope she is too, and I'm inside and there's so much relief to just be there.

I don't even have to move; I'm just there.

My head reminds me this is only her second time - her first time being just hours ago, so I have the mind to ask her if it still hurts.

_A little_, she says, and I wish now that she hadn't been a virgin because I have this sudden urge to just pound into her. But I curse myself for that because it's amazing that she was a virgin with me.

I want her to feel good.

I kiss her. I move slow. I raise her knees, and as I move now, she gasps.

_It's a good hurt_, she says and her voice sounds too much like a moan, and I love the way she says good and that makes me move faster and deeper, and I know I'm grunting, and she kind of is, too, in her own soft way.

Her hands gripping at my lower back, she raises her legs up on her own and I'm at a new angle, and now I'm deeper inside her than I've ever been, and I'm gone.

I say her name again, and it's a groan. And another groan. And one more.

I know it didn't happen for her, but it will. I'm determined. The condom's off and I'm kissing down her stomach, my fingers making their way between her thighs. I'll work her with my fingers until I know she feels good, and until she comes, and I'll do it as long as it takes, but it doesn't take long before she's biting her lip, and I kiss her so she bites mine instead, and her arms are around me, hugging me close and she's saying, Thank you, which makes me laugh but reassures me that if she's thanking me, she liked it.

_Soon,_ I tell Isabella, _you'll feel things you've never felt before_. And I want her never to leave my bed. And I want to tell her to let me buy her things, anything, because that might be all I really have to offer her. I know now with a clarity that I can't stand that I can't give her what she gives me.

.

The next time I wake up, Isabella's not in my bed, she's in my shower. I can hear the spray of the water, almost see her under it. I want to join her, but I don't. I let her have her privacy. She's given me more than she may ever know over the past two nights without asking for a thing. No more taking.

She had pushed the covers back when she got out of bed and I can see a little spot of blood. I made her bleed. I drift my hand over it; it's dry.

Her voice floats to me from the bathroom. She's singing. I listen with a smile, and when her voice cracks, I laugh. I cover my face with my pillow and wonder if she knows I can hear her or if she cares. I listen some more._ God, I love her_.

When she doesn't stop singing, I can no longer stop myself. I go to her.

"Bella?" I say in the bathroom so I don't startle her and also to ask permission.

She peeks her head out of the shower curtain, reaches a hand to me and pulls me in, but I start swearing right away and jump out from under the stream of the water that's burning my skin.

"Shit, you like it hot."

She adjusts the knob. "Sorry, I know." The water cools and I get under it, Isabella wrapping me in her arms, her body all wet and hot against mine.

We wash each other's hair.

"Bend down," she tells me. "You're too tall."

I step forward so I can rinse my hair, and she feels me against her stomach. I catch her glance down. And then she looks back up at me.

"Edward? Again? We just… two times… and I… I'm sore." She actually covers herself as if I might just start jamming it in her or something. I laugh.

"No, this just. This happens. With guys." I shake my head. "We can't help it."

This is what it's like with a virgin. She doesn't even know how guys are. At all. But at the same time, I don't really know what it's like for girls either, especially not virgins. It didn't cross my mind that she might still feel sore. I mean, even with me not being inside her.

I notice her shiver even though the water is nowhere near cold. She really does need it hot. I get out so she can take her scalding shower.

I towel off, brush my teeth, and wait for her in the bed.

It seems too much time passes before she comes out. I expect her to be be wrapped in a towel, but she's not. She's dressed. Her lips are pinker and shinier. She's wearing make up, definitely not coming back to bed.

Her hair's still wet, making damp shadows in her shirt.

Sitting up, my back against the headboard, I double check that I'm hidden by the sheet. She doesn't need to see what's going on with me under here all because of her wet hair and the water stain on her shirt. Witnessing one accidental hard on is enough for one day.

"Why don't guys ever have conditioner?"

"What guys?"

"You."

"I don't use it."

"You should. Don't you know it'll stave off baldness? That's what Alice says, anyway. And it took me forever to get your fine-toothed comb through my hair."

"My what?"

"Never mind." She climbs on the bed, crawling toward me on her knees, and kisses me. I pull her in by the waist.

"What other guys' showers have you been in?" I ask her, nose to nose, grinning.

"What other girls' showers have you been in?" She grins back at me. "I'm not a nun. But-" she sits back on her knees, my hand falling to her elbow "-you're the only person I've shared a shower with. I bet you can't say the same."

"I think we should change the subject."

"I agree." Her hand lands on my chest. "I think we should talk about your mom. I read that article. You know, the clipping I keep for you? Is that okay? I mean, to talk about?"

"Yeah." But my grin disappears. I feel it go fast, it doesn't even fade, it's just gone. And my hands are off her too, and I'm shifting on the bed to get more comfortable, but that doesn't matter because no matter what position I'm in, I won't feel comfortable.

"The article makes it seem like..." she looks down at her hand on my chest - her fingers rake over me a little. "Suicide?" she whispers the word and then meets my eyes like she's scared but determined, like if you're ever going to ask anyone if his mother committed suicide you have to make eye contact when you do it.

I touch her face to try to make her feel better about the whole thing, and I shake my head. "It's false. Everyone believed that, but it isn't true."

"You kept a false article?"

"Not for that. I kept it because it's the only account of me finding her. That part's true. Can you go to my first drawer on the right and hand me some boxers?" If I'm going to talk about my mother, I can't do it naked. She hands them to me, I pull them on and then pat the bed beside me. I'm going to tell her my story. She's next to me and my arm is around her, her hair cool and wet down my chest and torso, soothing.

I tell her what I know is true.

I know, for instance, that silence can be deafening.

One minute she was loud with life, my mother, talking to me, voice coming from her bathroom clear to me in the hallway as I was heading to my room, just home from school.

"Edward," she called. I know this because this much I heard, but after that, what was it? My mind was somewhere else. I was thinking of my night out, a party. "Your father's working late again tonight," maybe, or, "Edward, be a role model for your brother," or, "Edward, I love you."

I'll never know what her last words were, as I only heard her with the ears of a seventeen-year-old planning a night out. I only know whatever her words, they were meant for me, and then, the sound of her falling to the floor. There is no way to describe this sound. Nothing has ever sounded like it before and nothing has ever sounded like it after. I called to her, asking if she was okay. But I couldn't move. I froze where I stood in the hallway between my parents' wedding photo and a photo of Max and me.

No answer came and the silence began. I sprinted to the bathroom.

I wasn't listening when she was talking to me, and now I wanted nothing more than to hear her voice tell me she was okay. _It's just a slip._ Maybe even a laugh to go along with it. _A clumsy slip._

But there was no voice.

On the bathroom floor, looking hurt, she lay there. Still.

She was quiet with death. There's nothing quieter than the silence of your mother's dead body. No sound filled the emptiness - not my shoes on the tile, or the birds out the open window, or the wind, or the drops falling one at a time from the faucet left slightly on. There's no feeling either. I must have swallowed. I fell to my knees, but I felt none of it. I may as well have been floating. The ground was gone. The room was gone, the house, the street, the woods, the town, the state, the country, the world, all gone. My mother, _gone._

When all sound leaves the world, once you experience its silence, the kind that rings and resonates through your ears until it hurts and you want to cover them, you discover that the world has a heartbeat. It's the first sound to come back before the rest. It's like the teddy bear I carried around until I was four - the kind that's meant to sound like the inside of the mother's womb. And it's the same sound I heard in the world's heartbeat, soft and tunneled like a womb.

I touched her face. My cheek fell next to her mouth, and there was no breath. I gave my own mother mouth-to-mouth on the cold tile of the bathroom floor. I recalled what my father taught me. I tilted her neck, brought my lips to hers, gave her my breath. And then I pumped her chest. I tried it all over again and again, yelling at her to breathe. Couldn't she hear me? _Breathe, goddamnit!_

But she wouldn't. She'd never breathe again. I ran to call 9-1-1, and when I was back with my mother I could see the bathroom again.

That was when I noticed the pills, spilled on the floor. My mother wanted this, I thought. She did this. She chose death over life, over me, over Max, and I hated her.

And then I heard Max's voice, and I slammed the door shut. He was banging and yelling, and I turned the lock.

"Why did you do this?" I yelled at my mother, and Max was still yelling, too, and still banging on the door. I couldn't understand his words. He was twelve and sounded like a five year old.

I hated my mother for twenty-four hours, until we learned from the autopsy that she hadn't taken the pills. She was about to take one, but she dropped them first. She'd had a brain aneurysm. She collapsed. But the newspaper, they'd already printed the article about when I'd found her. Her and the pills.

From that day on, when I learned she hadn't left on purpose, hadn't wanted this, I've been racking my brain for what she said to me just before I heard her fall. I'll never know because I wasn't listening in any part of my mind.

I only hope that my subconscious knows, but after all this time, I have too many doubts.

I wasn't listening to my mother. I was too busy thinking of partying.

And that's why I have the dreams. I don't consider them nightmares.

I get to the part that Isabella already knows. Her fingers are in my hair, on the side of my head, and my eyes close. She kisses me. When I look at her she's crying. I cup her cheek, wipe some tears with my thumb and kiss her lips.

She slips her hand in mine and says, "I'm sorry."

"I wish she was here. I wish you could meet her."

"I'd love her." She turns and hugs me up tight.

.

As soon as it enters my mind, I have to do it now. This can't wait. I'm out of bed, pulling on pants, pulling a shirt over my head, pulling on shoes.

"What are you doing?" she asks, still in the same place on my bed, leaning against the headboard. I bend over to kiss her as I button my pants.

"I have to - I have to take care of something. Just-" I kiss her again "-wait here." I kiss her again. "Please, wait here. Don't go anywhere." Squatting down I take her hands in mine. "I wouldn't leave right now. Believe me, I wouldn't leave you right now if it wasn't important. Will you wait here?"

She nods, looking confused. I grab a book off my shelf across from the foot of the bed and toss it to her before I walk out the door. "That's my pick for you. Start it now if you want. I might be a while, but don't go." I poke my head back through the door. "I love you."

She smiles and waves her hand at me. "I love you, too. Go on, you weirdo. I'm not going to break."

I sprint across the yard, dodging or hurdling snow mounds, past the pool, through the house and up to Max's room. He's just climbing out of bed, shocked when I slam into his room.

"Max." I stare at him, panting. I know what I want to say, but suddenly I can't.

"What?"

Where do I start? I go over and sit in his desk chair.

"What?" he asks again, this time sounding more annoyed or impatient.

"What do you miss most about our mother?"

His eyes narrow; he sits back down on his bed. "There's not one thing."

"I know. There isn't, right? But if there was one, what would it be? Is there anything you remember the most? Or that you never want to forget?"

His eyes start to tear up and I don't try to stop it and I force myself not to clam up.

"She used to…" He closes his mouth. He swallows. I'm not breathing. "I remember when she would sometimes come into my room late at night and sit on my bed with me and ask-ask me-" he pauses for a slow blink "-ask me about my day. I liked when she did that. I miss that the most." His voice cracks in several places, through several words. Tears stream. "Just me and her."

I go over to him and pull him roughly into my arms. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been what you need. I was clueless. I've been trying so hard to be strong and keep you strong. But avoiding... avoiding is wrong. We need to talk about her. Okay? We need to remember her, or we might forget. And, buddy, it's okay to cry."

He is crying. He's holding tight to my arms, and sobbing, his shoulders shaking. He's gasping and choking, and as hard as it is to see him like this, he needs it, and I finally understand that.

"I cry, too. A lot. I have dreams that make me cry. And this morning, too. In front of Isabella. It happens."

I think I'm holding him up. If I let go of him, he might fall to the floor.

"My - my dreams make me cry, too."

I rub on his back, wishing I'd known this before. Why haven't I ever asked when it was happening to me? Why didn't I think it might be happening to him, too?

"We get to - we get to go on," he says in between sobs. "But she doesn't."

"I know. It isn't fair. I love you, man. I love you. Do you know that?" My breath rattles in my chest.

Minutes pass and he's still crying. Somehow he's able to piece the words together. "Love you."

I keep hugging him until he's calm. He pushes away from me, grinding the base of his hands into his eyelids like he used to do when he was little.

He's keeping his head down, eyes on the floor like he's embarrassed. I know this feeling. When you cry in front of someone else, when you're done, you realize how exposed you are. I turn from him, let him gain his composure.

I remind him of when he was about three and I was about eight, just learning to read. How I would hold him hostage in here, reading to him when all he wanted to do was play. He'd squirm and complain, and I'd hold him there, making him listen.

He laughs, not really remembering.

"I could do that again," I tell him. "Hold you hostage in here, but instead of reading to you I could force you to talk about your day. How about that? Just me and you?"

"Whatever, bro," he says, a small smile curving upwards. "I have to take a shower." He looks like he's better now, through crying.

Soccer season's over and after winter break, basketball season will start; that will automatically make him happier, I assure myself.

"I'll be in the pool house. Isabella's there, but you can come with me if you want. You can shower there."

"Naw, I'll use mine."

"Are you okay?"

He nods.

Before I leave his room he calls to me. "I never thought you were doing anything wrong. Just so you know."

"Listen, Max. I'm not going anywhere." I know it's true as I say it. There's no possible way, no other choice for me. "I'm going to college here in Washington. I want to. You're my family. My only family, and I'm not leaving."

"What about Ivy League? What about Dad?"

"You can do Ivy League if you want. You're the smarter one anyway. It's not in the cards for me."

"Dad's gonna kill you."

"He'll have to get over it."

I tell him that anytime he wants to talk about our mother he can talk to me. And when he's ready we can tell Isabella all about our mother, together. The good and the bad. She wants to know her, I say.

Outside his room I stop short. Esme's there, not even shocked that I've found her listening, watching. She doesn't move, except for her eyes blinking. Blinking away tears.

"The door was open," she says, stifled. "I-I - You two are..." She breaks off because she has to. She has no idea what Max and I are.

"We're gonna be fine," I tell her.

She brings a hand to my upper arm and I look at it. I can't remember if she's ever touched me before. "We could get to know each other. It wouldn't be a crime."

Realizing I'm still looking at her hand on my arm, I face her. "Yeah. Sure." I don't know if I mean it or not, and don't really care at this point. I walk away from her like she was never even there.

.

Back in the poolhouse, Isabella drops the book to her lap and looks at me, eyes bright, lips still pink. Since this seems to be the time for getting everything out in the open I go to my top drawer, pull out Jasper's sketch and hand it to her. She unfolds it and then folds it back up, handing it to me.

"Toss it?" I ask.

She nods. "Alice told me what people think it means to be in his book. Thanks for taking it out."

Neither of us say any more about it, and I don't have the energy to talk about what just went down with Max. "Max might be coming over soon," is all I tell her, taking the book from her lap and moving it to the bedside table.

I pull her legs until she's lying on her back and I kiss her lips a few times before I wrap my arms around her middle, laying my head down on her. Exhaustion has taken over me. "Can we sleep?"

"Mm-hmm." Her fingers comb my hair.

I don't even remove my shoes.


	22. Spillings

**In the Debris**

**Spillings**

**Victoria**

Moonlight travels the room like a blown kiss from a fairy, selective in what it reaches. A lamp base, the corners of a wall frame, dresser-drawer pulls catch pearls of shine like rain droplets on a spiderweb. The glow is so quiet, lazy, like it's sleeping with us.

I decided to spend another night at James' house, sharing his bed this time, him against the wall, me against him. We weren't as careful about not touching as we used to be, tangling up and untangling throughout the night. It was a restless sleep. Once I woke up, my head on my hands, my palms against his chest, his arms around me. Another time I awoke, I was turned away from him and he was turned away from me. And now I'm roused by the weight of one of his legs over one of mine. I love the heaviness of it.

I turn slightly and James moves. His arms wrap around my waist, his head leans against my back, between my shoulder blades. He sighs but doesn't wake. I look down at his arms resting against my stomach. In this pale light his skin is like spilled milk. I smile, watching the light, far from its home at the top of the sky, continue to hover over the fixtures in this little room, in this little town. Just like James and me, the moonlight will remain resting here until the earth's turn pushes it away and the sun takes over. It doesn't matter who you are or where you live, the moon and the sun don't neglect anyone. The world spins for us all.

I close my eyes once again, joining James in the arms of sleep, letting the world do its thing without me.

Early, when the sun's barely on the rise, before his mom wakes up, I ask James to drive me home. He walks me to the door and stares into my eyes. He stares so long I make up a short poem about eyes, the kind that see so deep into you they can make out where your soul begins. I can feel where my soul begins, right under my chest where my ribcage meets at a point. That dip. I can put my finger right there and push and feel my soul at my fingertip.

We hug. There's no kiss, not even on the cheek.

Showering is such a relief and dressing in new clothes also. I reach for my phone - abandoned for two days on top of my dresser - to check for messages. There are five: four from my aunt, one from Isabella.

When Aunt Cheri catches me downstairs she doesn't look happy. She lowers herself slowly into the living room chair as if she hasn't quite decided if she's going to sit down or not, and she doesn't take her eyes off me, sticking me to her gaze like glue. I'm a deer caught in her headlights.

"You can't do this, Victoria," she says, finally letting the chair take her. "You can't leave in the middle of the night and not come home for two days. Eighteen or not, you can't do this to us."

"You know what?" I walk toward her, I walk away, pacing. "Tell Uncle Phil. Tell him. Tell him to stop..."

"What?" Her face has softened and she looks so pretty, her round cheeks, her pointed chin, her blue, blue eyes. Something glints in them. It's how she is. She can get angry, but she has a hard time maintaining it.

"Stop calling me Little One."

"What does that have to do with you disappearing?"

I shake my head. "I've asked him to stop. But he won't. It's your turn."

"He doesn't mean anything by it. It's an endearment."

"And I want him to stop. Don't I have that right?"

She squints and scrunches up her nose for just a second. "Is this an attempt to change the subject?"

I groan at her, grab my bag and sling it over my shoulder. "I have plans with Isabella. I'm going to her house. Am I old enough for that? I'll be back later. To _sleep._"

On my way out, the smell of wassail from the stove wafts over me and I'm almost tempted to grab a glass and sit and sip with my aunt. I leave instead.

I don't ask Aunt Cheri if I can take her car. I walk to Isabella's.

Just like the ground, the sky is white. Mist hits my face and I close my coat all the way up to my chin, tighten my hood. It could be worse. It could be snow, the kind that pelts. And it might start snowing now and there would be nothing I could do to stop it. I could turn and go home. I could start running to get to Isabella's faster. I could slip and fall. But the weather, like slipping and falling, like so many things, is out of my hands.

There are some things you can control, and some things you can't no matter how much you wish you could, no matter how hard you try. The earth's turn, the people outside of me, their choices, their actions, they all might affect me, might send me tumbling forwards or backwards, but they aren't mine.

My mother, my uncle, James, James' dad. Their actions have already taken their hold on me, shaking me up in different ways, changing parts of who I am. I can't control that. But what I can control are my own actions. I'll find my mother, I'll get my answers. And like I told James, I'll lock my bedroom door at night, but if I forget, if my uncle invites himself in again, I'll open my eyes this time, I'll stare back, I'll tell him:_ Get out._

Charlie lets me in, he and Renee on their way to Port Angeles, he tells me. Renee greets me as she passes. She's ditched the crutches, getting around with a cane now.

In Isabella's room, Alice is there. Her midnight-colored hair, usually styled with the ends tipped up, curving in the shape of tiny smiles, is now tucked neatly under at the base of her neck. Her shiny pink lips push her pink cheeks up into a big smile as if we're old friends and I frown at her. Accidentally.

I guess this was inevitable, being friends with Isabella, that our separate worlds would collide.

"Hi," I say to Alice to cover up for my rudeness.

Isabella's in the corner near the window checking out something on her camera and looks up to wave at me. Her face freezes as soon as she sees me, her camera dropping in slow motion to the bed.

"What's wrong?"

I shake my head - there's no way I'm talking about my problems in front of Alice. I sit down in the desk chair and play with a pencil, turning it over, sliding my fingers down and then flipping it, repeating the action. Over and over I do this, thinking about reaching into my bag for my poetry book just to distract myself from Alice's stare.

"Get this," Alice says, sitting opposite me on the bed. "I come over to see if she has any pictures I can add to the yearbook? And the only people pictures she has are mostly Edward. Some of you, and a few of James. For as much as she has a camera in her face, you'd think she'd have more to offer me, right?"

"There are photos of my parents, too," Isabella says with a laugh in her voice.

"Oh yeah," says Alice, "Let me just slap them all over the yearbook."

"You should've told me you wanted me to take yearbook-type pictures," Isabella says.

"It isn't too late."

"Fine. Who do you want me to go after?"

"I'll make a list." Alice winks at me. I frown again. I should probably try to stop scowling at her every time she pays me some attention, but it's just so strange. "No. It doesn't matter. Just anything interesting." She stands up, grabbing her handbag. "Of people. _Students_."

After Alice leaves, Isabella lifts her camera, aiming the lense at me. I cover my face.

"Don't."

She drops the camera a little ways, to her nose. "Why not?"

"Not now."

She drops the camera farther now, to her stomach. "What's wrong?"

"Does something have to be wrong for me not to want my picture taken?" I say it a little snappy, surprising myself just as I'm surprising her. Her eyebrows raise and she puts the lens cap over her camera.

"Sorry."

I don't say anything.

"Do you want to go to lunch? We can go eat at the Mexican place."

I narrow my eyes. "There's no Mexican place in town."

She smirks at me. "I was hoping there was one I just hadn't come across yet. Maybe underground."

"Sorry."

She suggests we go to the grocery store to pick up some frozen burritos and we'll make spanish rice in their rice cooker.

So we go. We take her truck down to the store and wander the chilled aisles, adding to our basket not just burritos, but chips, a frozen pie, ice cream. Back at her house we decide to forgo the meal part of lunch and head right into dessert.

She slips the pie into the oven while I pour chips into a bowl.

"You hurt your hand?"

I open my fingers. "Just a cut. It's nothing. It's fine." I think about lifting the bandage to check on the healing, but I leave it alone.

"Are you ever going to tell me what's going on?" she asks. "You said about five words the whole time we were gone, and usually it was yes or no."

I slide up onto the counter reminding her that I also said "apple" when she asked what kind of pie I wanted.

She takes hold of my knee and gives it a shake. "Talk to me."

I tell her about James. All of it. The friendship, the love, the lies, the fight, and the now, whatever that means.

"Of course he loves you. Couldn't you tell?"

"No. I knew he cared, but not this kind of love. Except for one time, he's always been the same with me. He wasn't obvious, like Edward with you. Edward looks at you like you're responsible for each star's placement in the sky."

"Are you kidding right now, Victoria? James would probably kill a poor little bird if it tried to steal bread from you. And when I was first getting to know him, he talked about you so much I knew more than I should have before actually knowing you." She stops and puts her hand out. "No, nothing personal or anything, just, you know, normal things - what makes you laugh, your favorite ice cream-"

"Vanilla bean," we both say at the same time.

"And at Edward's party, when he saw you go up the hill with Edward? The look on his face, Victoria, you should've seen it. He asked me what was going on with you two but of course I had no clue. I mean, I thought that Edward and I had some sort of click but I wasn't sure; he sent so many mixed signals, and then with all the rumors. Anyway, so I went looking for you and what I found, what it looked like-" her gaze drops down to fhe floor as she tucks her hair behind her ear "-it looked like if I told James what I saw, his whole face might break like ceramic. Just, cracks all over the place, you know?" She catches my eyes again.

I think about that night, remembering how Edward and I talked about Isabella when we saw her down there with James, little garden lights shining on their ankles. I thought they were flirting. She put her arm through his. Was she comforting him?

"What did you end up telling him?"

"I told him that you two were just talking and sharing some tequila, and I showed it to him, told him I took it so that if you wanted it back you'd have to come down off that hill. He laughed at that." She shrugs. "I wanted to see him smile."

I think about how after she left, Edward and I kissed, and how we might have gone farther than that. I feel a twinge of guilt considering James was in need of cheering up that whole time, but then I'm reminded that he's the reason for it all. I had already told him how I felt about him. I lift my head and sigh up to the ceiling, the cycle of James turning once again.

"He shouldn't have lied," I say.

"No. He shouldn't have."

The oven timer goes off and she sets the pie out to cool. She tells me about this spot Edward sometimes takes her to, up on a hill overlooking the river.

"You can see the waterfall far off to the left, and right down below is the river. There's this huge blackish rock down there. Even from way up on the hill it looks enormous. Like too big to even climb on top of."

She cuts into the pie and serves the slices onto the plates. The pie slices fall apart.

"I think I know which rock you mean."

"Really?" She turns to look over her shoulder. "Do you know how to get there? Edward says there's no road."

"If it's the place I'm thinking of, there isn't a road. But we could walk there. Drive as far in as we can and then walk the rest of the way."

"How far?"

I shrug. "I'm not good with distances, but I think it'll take like forty minutes or something. Maybe an hour."

She takes a bite of her pie and her eyes roll back. She cuts a piece off my slice and holds the fork up to my mouth. "Oh my god, Victoria, bite this."

"Hot," I say with my full-of-pie mouth wide open, trying to breathe out.

"Just wait. Just wait." She shoves another bite into her own mouth.

I close my mouth and chew and my eyes close, too. "Mmm."

"So worth the burn, right?"

She feeds me another piece. "This right here," she says tapping the tips of her fork on her plate. "Total proof that everything will work out."

Chewing, I look at her, wishing my life was as simple as that.

"Wait, what did you just say?" I ask, my mouth full again. I swallow the squishy hot apples, the cinnamon-sugar flavor.

"About everything working out?"

"No, about the pie burning."

"I said it's worth the burn." She hops up onto the counter next to me, resting her plate of mushed up pie on her lap and her head on my shoulder. "Isn't it?"

I let my head fall against hers. "Yeah. Worth the burn."

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

My head follows the snow-capped rocks as we pass, sure I can run faster than we're moving. I give James hell for his slow driving as he rounds the next curve. He tells me it's a habit from when he couldn't risk getting pulled over between Port Angeles and Forks.

"Yeah, I get it. But I wish I had one of those driver's training pedals over here so I could speed you up. This grandma mosey is killing me." It really is driving me mad. At this rate we won't get where we're going until next week.

"It's a brake."

"What?"

"Those cars. They only have a brake, not a gas pedal."

"Oh, yeah." I laugh. "Still, speed the hell up. You've got nothing in this car you could get nailed for." I look over at him. "Do you?"

"Just in my system."

"There's the truth." Now I know why he's doing about twenty. He probably feels like he's flying. "Can't you go one day without weed?" It's a joke, sarcasm, but he doesn't seem to appreciate it very much. His hand clenches the wheel like I've hit some nerve. I close my mouth.

"I can go several days without lighting up. But not," he pauses, I think for effect, "on the day I pay a visit to Dear-old-Dad."

Still, a mile later, I tell him to pull over and let me drive and I nose the old Integra through the winding road into Clallam Bay at a speed that's actually getting us somewhere. James called me to ask if I'd come with him to visit his father in the prison there. It was like listening to myself talk, the way he had trouble with a simple question. He ended up finally making it clear that he couldn't see his dad alone. But man, that was hard for him to admit. He said he'd probably end up socking him or something. I think, more than that, it probably makes him upset, too, to have to visit his dad in jail, but I won't say anything like that to him.

"Tell me something. Does Whitlock really use girls like dishtowels?"

"What's this about?" I ask, even though I pretty much know. We've both seen Victoria's sketch; it was only a matter of time before this came up again.

I feel him eye me.

"No, man. I mean, no. He doesn't commit or anything, but they're not dishrags to him. He likes them, you know? He does."

"But he manipulates them?"

"He's upfront with them."

"Come on, Cullen. Be straight with me."

"All right, yeah, he manipulates them. Somehow he can get them to think it's all a great idea. The no strings thing, the sketchbook thing. They like it. Even I don't know how he does it. It's a gift."

I side-glance at James and he's staring straight through the windshield, a hard look on his face. I remember being right there with Jasper. A part of it all. Looking at the sketchbook, laughing about it, counting the pages. Numbers. The girls were fucking numbers. My foot falls harder on the gas.

"Look, we're in this to see your dad, not make me feel like shit. Forget about it."

"Can't do that."

"You have no choice. You either forget about it or drive yourself mad with it. Can't change it. And Jasper's not a bad guy. If the girls are into that. The no strings? They're better off with him than with some of the other assholes out there. He treats them right while they're around. He just makes sure they aren't around long."

"Still not easy to let go of when the girl you-" He stops. "When she's one of them."

I say nothing, let the subject swerve off with the road behind us. Because he's right. I know what I felt like when I thought Isabella was one of those girls, one of those numbers. And I know what a relief it was for me when I found out she wasn't one of them. And remembering what Jasper's said about Isabella in the past, I think maybe it's not such a bad idea if he gets his ass kicked around a little bit.

Would James do it? I take my eyes off the road to gauge his expression. Is he still stuck in his head over this? Probably, yes. Probably will be for a long time. I'm convinced all it would take to set him off would be for Jasper to call James "Hood" to his face. I'm kind of hoping for it.

Maybe hoping for it means it should be me, I should be the one. I can't see myself looking Jasper square in the face and decking him. And if I don't look, if I swing without looking, that's nothing but a coward. I'd lose the fight from the first pussy-swing. Even if he never swung back.

.

"Is it really this hot in here?" My shirt is sticking to my skin like some kind of packing tape as we enter the visitors' room.

"Someone's cranked up the heat," James says.

We get a glare flashed at us from a guard, I guess for talking, so we both shut up. We were already searched, and warned, and told the rules as if we were inmates, as if we were going to sneak the guy a knife or try to break him free or something. We don't want any more attention from those guys than necessary. I follow James around occupied tables, orange-jumpsuits everywhere you look. Tears in the eyes of some of the biggest men here as they visit with their wives, their children. I look away. I look at the floor as I walk. It's harder to look at the kids in here than the men in orange. I think of Max and there's a lump in my throat.

James introduces me to his dad.

"Ah, the Cullen kid," he says shaking my hand. "Wouldn't your old man be proud if he knew where you were."

Of course he knows my dad has no clue I'm here. I don't say anything, just kind of give him a chin nod and take a seat on the hard ass chair. He and James have the same color hair, and they both keep it long in the front so that it flops over their eyes, and like James, his dad shakes it out of his way every once in a while. It's funny how here I feel like I have to act tough in front of him, but he's got this face, this friendliness in his eyes, like he might be on the verge of telling a joke. I can tell that if we were at his house, I could be myself.

"It's good to see you, kid," he says to James. "What brings you here?"

"Not you," James says, and I focus in on the wall.

The silence between them lasts too long. I can hear murmurs coming from another table, it turns into this buzzing sound, and I can't wait to get out of here, and this thought has me looking back at James' dad. How must he feel? I've been in this room all of about four minutes. He's been here over a year, maybe over two years, locked up.

His eyes are blue and wet. "What, then?"

"Victoria. She's looking to find her mom, and thinks you might have known her."

"Not really. I was in school with Cheri. Charlotte was just a kid back then before I left. By the time we moved back to Forks, you were about ready to pop your mom's stomach open. Victoria's mom had already split."

James leans back in his chair and drums his fingers on the table. This is all he's come for, to get info on Victoria's mom, so now what?

My eyes are back on the wall and I'm thinking of Isabella. Why am I not with her right now instead of here? I remember she's spending time with Victoria, so that wouldn't have been an option for me anyhow. This fact doesn't stop me from thinking of her hands, her fingers, her mouth.

"Heard about her a lot, though. She used to date… she used to date…"

"Who?" James leans forward and actually looks at his father.

"That guy that worked at the bakery. The owner's son."

"Pete?" I ask.

"Yeah, that's his name."

"How do you know?" James asks.

"People around know. Your mom might even know." He gestures to James. "Or I don't know, maybe it's only the guys. They talk about her, some of them do. Still. Out at the pub."

My knee starts hammering away. I know that pub. Man, Forks is a small ass town. That's nothing new, but sometimes it's easy to forget exactly how small it is.

I haven't thought about that pub in a long time. My mom used to hang out there, play guitar there, actually. And if Victoria's mom hung out there too, when she was around, I wonder if they might've possibly known each other.

"How is your mom?"

"I think you know." James is back to making no eye contact.

"You taking care of her?"

At this, he looks at his father once again, a harsh look. Not a glare but something accusatory. "Got no choice, do I?"

They fall back into their silence, but something's going on between them. They're ignoring each other, projecting this uncomfortable vibe like a spotlight or beacon only on our table. The conversation is over, nothing but silence hanging in the air lick thick humidity, but James isn't leaving and his dad seems to know this. James stays all the way up until his father's visiting time is up. They stand up at the same time and I can see that his dad is about to reach to hug him, but when he switches it up and offers his hand, James won't even take it. I stand up and nudge James with my elbow. I'm nobody to try to make anyone else be civil to his father, but come on, his dad's about to be led back to a cage, while we're about to go out on the road, winding our way back home and wherever else we want to go from there. He can at least shake the dude's hand. And they do shake, noticeably firm on both ends. I shake his hand too, and do that thing I've seen my father do to people. I wrap my other hand around his wrist while we shake, and I meet his eyes. He's got a small smile on his face, and he gives me a nod.

"You're all right, kid," he says. "Nothing like your old man, are you?"

"Not if I can help it."

"I'm sure my son would say the same about me." He sends his attention back to James. "I write to you."

"I've never gotten a letter from you."

"I don't send them. But I'd like to. Is it all right if I send 'em?"

James doesn't answer, and a guard barks a reminder at us to basically get the hell out.

"I'll send them." James' dad calls after us. Neither of us turn around. I don't want to know if he's watching us, don't want to see if his eyes are wet again.

"Thanks," James says to me as we haul our way through the parking lot. Neither of us can get out of here fast enough. "Thanks for coming with me, Cullen."

"Anytime," I say, even though I don't mean it. Or, maybe I do. Nobody should ever have to come here alone.

.

I wander up the stairs of the main house. Something about today has me thinking about, or not really thinking about, but feeling family. I take the stairs like I'm being pulled and I'm drawn to my parents' room - what was once their room, Carlisle and Elizabeth Cullen's. Their shared space.

All the furniture is the same. The deep mahogany extra long dresser. The vanity table where my mother would sit and brush her hair or put creams on her face or pluck her eyebrows. There are round light bulbs all around the mirror, and they're shut off now. I wonder if they're ever turned on, if Esme uses this table. Maybe she doesn't. The top of it that used to be covered with my mother's things is empty. I flip the switch to turn the lights on. I wonder if the last time these lights shone was when my mother sat on that small bench with its blue cover.

It's the same blue silk that covers the bed. Nothing's changed in here at all except the most important thing - the woman who occupies the space. My attention on the bed, I see myself there with my mother playing guitar and I go over and sit on it and then I'm lying down on it, on what was once my mother's side of the bed. Is this Esme's side now? Or has my father moved over? I'm hoping he at least had the decency to do that.

The old fashioned phone grabs my attention. I pick up the receiver and dial Isabella's cell.

She answers with a "Hello?" instead of the "Hey," or "Hi," or "Edward," or "Yo," that she usually does, depending on her mood, when she knows it's me calling. The "Yo" always gets me.

"Bella."

"Edward? Where are you calling from?"

"I'm in the main house, the landline. What are you doing?"

"Victoria's here. What are you doing?"

I glance around the room. "I wanted your voice."

"I want your voice, too."

Lying on my side, my head sinks into the too-soft pillow. "I want you."

"Edward," she laughs and it's kind of breathy, like she's trying to keep it quiet. "This is Victoria's day and she, she needs a friend."

"Trust me, she wants to see James, anyway. He has news for her."

She tells me she'll call me back. I ask her if she's driving here or if she wants me to pick her up.

"You're so sure of yourself, aren't you?" But I can tell by the sound of her voice, she's coming.

After I hang up, I dial another number. My father's. Expecting voicemail, I'm almost sent into shock when he answers.

"No surgeries?"

"I'm on my way to dinner with Esme. Why are you calling from the house phone?"

"I'm in your room," I say, as if that answers his question.

"What are you doing in there?"

"Can you get new bedroom furniture?"

"What? Edward, what's going on?"

I repeat my question.

"I've thought about it," he says, and pauses, lowers his voice. "I can't get rid of that set."

My eyes close and I grind my face into the pillow for a second. "At least the bed," I say, turning onto my back. "Get a new bed."

"What will I do with that one? I can't get rid of it. She picked it out. She loved it."

I don't say anything, my father's words echoing over again in my head and I have this sudden affection for him. Is this because he has a genuine reason for wanting to keep my mother's furniture? Is it because of what went on with James' dad? Maybe it's both.

"We can switch it out with one of the guest rooms," I say. "Dad, don't share Mom's bed with Esme, okay? No more. Get a new bed."

"Esme would like that," he says, and I can almost see him nodding.

.

Isabella stands at my door, her face bright, and before she even enters the pool house, I'm reaching for her. Under her hair, I feel up and down her neck, and then just my thumb at her throat, up and down, and when I smile at her, I swear her eyes lighten and I'm all over her in that second. She's laughing, wrapping her arms up and around me.

It's the first time I make her come through sex. I cheat a little bit, working her with my fingers until I know she's near her edge, and I pull her on top of me, positioning her over me. Her hair is covering too much of her breasts so I push it over her shoulder, and then drop my hands to her hips, moving them for her. She falls forward a few times, like she's lost strength, her hand on my shoulder, an "oh god," from her lips, and I keep her moving. Her hands pressing my chest, she moves herself now, and I let go of her hips to hold her breasts. Her breathing gets heavy, the gasps come faster, the lip biting. Sliding my hands up her back to her shoulders, I press, bringing her down to my lips to keep her from biting herself, and she's so worked up, she's moving faster, and then even faster, until she's still and gone, and I move for her again, all the way through the end.

"Spend the night," I say, pulling her in close, her face in my chest, her hair covering me. I love the feel of her hair on me almost as much as her skin.

"Okay," she says, so easily. Everything with her is easy.

"They already think you're with Victoria, don't they?"

"Yes," she laughs her answer. "I stuffed extra clothes in my bag."

"Your parents are going to kill me if they ever find out the truth."

"Should I go home then?"

"No." I hold her tighter. I haven't told her about the prison, or my weak moment in my parents' room, or my strong moment when I talked my dad into getting a new bed. I've told her none of it. I will, but now isn't the time. I'll tell her tomorrow. She'll still be here in the morning.

There's one thing that dawns on me that I do tell her. Embarrassed by it, but wanting to warn her, not scare her again. With the thoughts of family, particularly my mother - I know this feeling - I might wake up crying again. "If I dream about her, I can't help it."

"And I'll wake up loving you," she says. "Can't help it."

"I've never had anyone like you in my life before." I kiss her, holding the back of her head, keeping her there.

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN_**: Thank you for reading and thanks for reviewing, recommending, tweeting! :)

Myimm0rtal is my super-fast beta!

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	23. Tangles

**In the Debris**

**Tangles**

**Edward**

Emmett -_ Rooster_ - the bulkiest of us, is on the top tier, taking the hay bale from Jasper, below him, who's taking the hay from me, and I'm taking it from James, who's handing it over from the tractor.

We've formed a four-person assembly line at the far end of the football field, stacking the hay in six-foot walls, following the spray-painted pattern of the maze. Each of us hands the hay up to the next level as if up stairs. The maze is a good forty percent finished.

I'd want to tell whoever plans this thing that we're not grammar school kids, but the thing is, this maze is massive every year and it really is hard to find your way through. Everyone looks forward to it.

Signs in shop windows and walls and bulletin boards, and even a banner hanging across the main street announce the _27th Annual Winter Carnival_ - and it's something practically the whole town attends. The senior guys to ditch afternoon classes for the two days it takes to set up the maze, tents, and string-lights over trees. Large hanging lanterns will be added to the tents wherever heavier light is needed. Every year this carnival goes on rain or snow, and seldom is there a dry year. People know this, they accept this, they look forward to this. A spontaneous dirty snowball fight has been known to break out, or mud-puddle-splash fights, girls and guys walking away freezing and dripping with watery mud - nobody cares.

Up behind the stands, there are fire pits set up. Plastic classroom chairs will be surrounding each fire pit by Friday night, and the fires will be lit, black smoke climbing into the sky. Popcorn will be popping in old fashioned machines on wheels, as hot cider is passed around. Under the tents, carnival games will be manned by parent volunteers and a raffle will take place that, unless it's you, nobody knows who the winner is because the numbers are drawn at a later date and the winner receives a phone call to come pick up the prize.

The wind swoops in and fades away, shoving storm clouds over us that threaten to rain us out any minute.

Jasper's a step above me and I'm shoving the hay at him, rougher with each pass. I'm tired of looking at him right now, acting natural, joking around like nothing's changed, like he hadn't tried to lie to me about Isabella.

The next time I crash a hay bale into him, he hops to the ground in front of me. "What's your problem?"

I glare at him, my whole body shaking a little and it's all I can do not to swing at him. Now's not the time. Not at school, but the staring's getting to me and I can't hold back completely.

"Why the hell did you tell me you slept with her?"

"Probably because I did." He says it all smug and with a laugh on the last word that makes me shove him, gloves to chest, hard enough he stumbles back.

"What the fuck?" He comes at me, throwing his gloves off, his bare hands fisting, but he stops in front of me, lowering his face eye-to-eye with mine.

"There's no fucking way you and Isabella..." I'm shaking my head but not taking my eyes off him.

"What's up?" James says and there's a hand on the back of my shoulder. Jasper gives him a chin-nod, not a friendly one. I would say things don't look too good for Jasper right now except Emmett's coming up and standing behind him.

"I see how it is," I tell Emmett. "No, I get it. We don't hang out anymore so it's cool."

"Naw man, naw," says Emmett. "I don't even know what's up over here. You should both cool off." The words come out calmly but he crosses his huge arms over his chest and adjusts his stance in a way that makes his whole comment more like a threat.

"Who the hell said anything about Isabella?" Jasper's eyebrows narrow and he sort of spits the words at me like he can't believe he's being accused of this.

"Funny," I say, "you're funny."

"Explain."

"The sketchbook?"

He cocks his head as if confused or to tell me to continue.

"I asked you and you said you slept with her, and then later when I took the drawing, you said she earned her spot."

He glances away from me, as if thinking, remembering, and then he starts shaking his head. "First of all-" he points at me "-that first day you saw her picture, you asked me if anything _happened_. You didn't ask me if I fucked her. I might've, that one night, if I hadn't cancelled things. _For you_."

"You wouldn't have," I say. I stalk away from him, start to turn back, but don't. I haul it out of there, leave the field, pass the fire pits up on the concrete.

Jasper catches up. "Cullen, nothing more went on with her and you know it never will. And she earned her spot, but not with a lay. It was just her face in the picture, right? I never saw anything else. She wouldn't even let me get to second base."

I keep on walking toward the parking lot and he's still walking with me. I don't know where I plan to go, if I'll leave campus, if I'll go back. I'm not thinking that far ahead.

"But you put her in the sketchbook. Why?"

"You think I fucked every girl in that book?"

"Everyone thinks that."

He stops. "And you're _everyone_ now, right? Fuck you." His voice is thick like his throat's expanded too big to fit inside his neck and he's frowning, his whole face one big frown. "There are thirty-six girls in that book. You think I've done that many chicks in two years?"

I shrug, jamming my thick-gloved-hands into my coat pockets, looking off to the side. The school. Maybe I'll go and meet Isabella.

"Did you?" he asks.

I face him. "You let me think it."

"Okay. All right." He nods at me, slow, deliberate. "When was the last time we hung out? And I don't count the times you've come over to lecture me or tell me off."

"Don't know." I'm thinking last March, but like I'm talking to my father instead of Jasper, I don't say it.

"Yeah, and you come at me today, Hood fucking backing you up. So, you know. You can't have an opinion about me anymore. Or if you do, keep it to yourself. This holier-than-thou thing you got going on is_ bullshit_. Let me do my thing and you do yours."

He doesn't walk away, and neither do I. He pulls out a pack of smokes, jams one into his mouth and offers the rest of the pack to me. I slide off my gloves, shove them in my coat pocket and take one, my mouth practically salivating for it.

He lights his and tosses me the lighter. Mine's lit and I throw the lighter back. I inhale, practically sucking the whole thing into my mouth. I let the smoke out. We eye each other, look away, inhale, exhale, stare each other down again. No words are exchanged. Enough is said through our eye contact. This is it. Nobody else around. One last smoke together. Mine's nothing but ash now and I flick it to the ground, stomp it out.

"See ya." I head toward the building. School will be out soon.

I wait for Isabella by her locker, leaning against it, my foot resting back on the one below, my eyes on the ground. I'm in no mood to talk to anyone but her right now.

Feet pass by, legs, that's it. I'm looking for the right boots. The worn out, faded black ones that won't do her much good in the dead of winter. There they are. I watch them approach and don't look up until I hear her voice.

"You're blocking my space, Cullen."

I lift my head, that grin, that smile. I take her by the coat collar and crush my lips to hers.

When we break off, she says, "You smell like smoke."

I nod.

Her eyebrows pull together and I expect her to give me hell for it or something. But her hand comes to my chest, flat over my heart. She pushes against me a few times. "You okay?"

Loaded question there. She has no idea. "Yeah."

She clutches the center of my shirt and pulls me down, standing on her toes to reach my lips. She kisses me even though I smell like smoke, probably taste like it, too. "You sure?"

I kiss her again, a few more times. "Yeah." This time I think it's true. "Get your stuff. Let's get outta here."

I step aside so she can exchange out the books she needs.

"You're done with the maze?"

"For today."

I throw an arm over her shoulders as we head to the parking lot. She waves at a few people. I ignore them all.

"I'm allowed to get you a Christmas present, right? You said something like that once." I'm weaving her through the parking lot toward her truck. We drove to school separately; we'll be leaving separately.

"What are you planning?"

I tighten my hold on her a little, my lips to the side of her head. "I'd spoil you if you'd let me."

She stops in her tracks and turns to face me. I pull her out of the center of the street, wait for someone to pass by, and I look at her face, questions in her eyes.

"It's all I... If I thought you'd let me, I'd buy you a fucking car." I kind of whisper it. People are all around, climbing into cars. A mix of too-different music rises around us - beats all over the place.

"What's wrong with my truck?" She sort of laughs, but when she sees there's no joke in my expression, her face falls from confused-humor to pulled-brow pissed off. "What would your dad say to that?"

"It's none of his business."

"That's funny, because he made it pretty clear to me it's _his_ money."

I didn't mean to make this about money. I hate when it turns into money.

Her eyes narrow. "I'm not in this for gifts and I'm not a charity case." She starts to spin away from me but I take her arm.

"That's not what I mean. That's not it." I turn her around and tilt her face so she's looking at me. Her lips tighten and then disappear into her mouth for a second, her eyes still working a glare.

I swallow. "Don't be mad. Not you. Not you." I let my forehead fall to hers, not caring who's witnessing this, not even aware. "I'm not going to buy you a car. I wasn't going to do that."

She adjusts the backpack on her shoulders and fingers the zipper on her coat, giving it short up-and-down slides.

"Come on, Bella." I kiss her. "Come on. You're not mad because I said I'd buy you a car. I know you're not mad about that." I smile again and kiss her again. "I was just trying to say that I want to give you something. Something great."

"Edward." It's a whisper, a harsh one. "I'm not mad. Just - you give me a gift like that, something big, expensive, and I'll be judged."

I start shaking my head, even though I know she's right. I remember what Esme said to me, and what my father said to Isabella.

"Yes. Maybe not by you, but I will be. And I don't want to go around having to prove I'm not in this for the money."

I'm sure this has to do with what my father said to her, and I'll never be able to take that back. Will this always be here between us? Does she really feel like she has to constantly prove she's not in it for the money? I don't want that.

She pulls the ends of her coat sleeves over her hands, hiding them.

"Hey." I take her shoulders. "You don't have to do that. Don't feel like that. You're unreal to me. Can't I give you something back?"

"That's easy." She hits at my shoulder with the edge of her hand a few times and her voice goes quiet. "Give me you, Edward." She tugs at my jacket. "Give me you."

"Done." I smile at her, hoping she smiles back. I wait.

There's no smile.

"Not done. Something's wrong and you're not telling me what it is."

My arm around her again I walk her the rest of the way to her truck. She turns so that her back is to it.

"You're not going to tell me?"

"I got into it with Jasper." Hands in my pockets, I shrug like it's nothing. "Had a smoke."

"Because of me?"

"Because of him. The sketch."

"And that's all?"

"That's not all," I say. "I don't want you to feel like me buying you something is the worst thing in the world, or like it's charity."

"Just give me small things, regular things - like a hat - and it won't be a problem."

"You want a hat?" Smiling again, I touch the back of her hand.

"But not a hat store." Now she's smiling, too. Finally.

"That I can do."

"Or a book."

"But not a bookstore." I open her truck door for her.

"Wait a second. A bookstore's not a bad idea." She's joking, everything back to normal. And now she's the one who, after stepping up into her truck, has to lean down to kiss me, her forearms resting on my shoulders. With hands at her hips, I'm the one lifting my head, reaching to kiss her back.

The money and what my dad said won't always be between us, I tell myself. It's just for now. It'll go away.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Tingles run across my fingertips like I'm brushing over snow instead of fabric. My hand is drifting down the dress I've decided I'll meet Peter in. A dress. I shake my head at the thought of dressing up for this man, a stranger, but still, it feels right because what if he's _him_?

Even though our meeting is weeks away, I know my body will not relax until that day comes.

Right here in this room, witnessed by all of my things and anything of my mother's that I have, James delivered his news. I turn toward the bed. I'd been sitting there.

Now my feet tingle too as I remember, and I lift up to my toes just to move, just to relieve the tickling.

James had taken both of my wrists lightly, his fingers like silk-ribbon bracelets, and he knelt down in front of me. His eyes reminded me of the sea, determined in their ferocity. I didn't know yet how his words would have a similar power - like the tide, unexpected, knocking into me, throwing me off balance.

"I went to see my dad."

"What? James!" I yanked my arms away from him; I'm unsure why. It was just a reaction. Immediately I reached for him again, pulling on him so he wasn't kneeling anymore. He sat beside me on the bed, facing me. "I would've gone with you."

"No. Listen. It's okay. Listen. He didn't know your mom."

My eyes found my hands; they seemed alien, like they didn't belong to me, weren't even attached.

"But he knew of her."

I looked at him again as he told me about who he called the "baker's son," and that his name was Peter. Peter. He dated my mother.

"You went to see your dad?" I asked, as if, out of everything, that was the thing to process, but it must've been. "You said you were going to ask your mom to do it."

He rubbed his chin. There was scruff there, and for a second I wondered if it felt scratchy on his fingers. "No, because who knows if she would've asked the right questions or got answers out of him. I had to do it myself."

"I can't believe you did that for me."

He took hold of my fingers, folding his hand over them like a clam encasing a pearl. "Don't you know what I would do for you?"

The straining in my eyes was so familiar now. I scratched a sudden itch over my eyebrow.

"No. Don't," he said, the knuckles of his free hand breezing down my face.

I smiled through my unreleased tears. Tears that blurred my eyes just enough to distort James' smile. I took his hand from my face and kissed his knuckles before reaching up to hug him.

"Thank you. That must've been so hard for you."

His chin resting on my shoulder, his hands slid up and down my back.

"How was he? How did it go?" I asked, pulling from the hug, my hand on his chest, staying there, touching him still.

"He looked older, a lot older, and..." His lips twitched and he stood up, going to the window. If he decided that was the end of the conversation, I'd let it go.

"I might go back again sometime." His eyes, still looking out the window, had an intensity I could see even from his profile, as if he was talking to something outside that nobody could see but him. "Even if I just sit there and we don't say anything. Just sit there with him. He seemed so lonely."

"Does this mean you aren't mad at your mom anymore? For going?"

"I don't know." He let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders lifting and dropping. "I still hate him for what he did, but I guess at the same time-" he turned to face me "-I'm glad he hasn't been completely alone, you know? Does this make any sense?"

I stood up and walked over to him, thinking that I understood what he meant more than anyone else could. I nodded at him, and we looked out the window together, the side of my hand just grazing the side of his arm. There were the backs of a few other houses to see out there, and overgrown grass. "Isabella can see the lake from her window."

.

Now, sliding that dress aside I go for a sweater, another layer to keep warm during the carnival. I meet them outside. Max is in the front seat, between Edward and Isabella, and as I squeeze into the back, my arm and hip squishes up against Max's friend.

"I'm Josh," he says, pushing up his glasses, holding out his hand to shake.

"Victoria." I shake his hand, smiling past him at James who smiles back.

Edward's car roars away and I watch the wet neighborhood fly by outside my window.

.

The day after James had told me about Peter, I learned just how annoyingly busy the pastry shop could be during the holidays. There was never a lull long enough for me to approach Mr. Alistair about his son. If ever the shop was empty for a few minutes, by the time I worked up my courage, the phone would ring. Even after closing, Mr. Alastair was holed up in the back baking. I lingered around cleaning and recleaning the shop, the counters, the tables, the glass. I rearranged some ornaments on the small Christmas tree in the corner. Moved one here and the other one there, for no reason other than nerves. Finally, I rounded the counter, followed the darkened hallway to the kitchen and blurted it out.

"You have a son named Peter?"

Mr. Alistair looked up from the cupcake he was forming little frosting bows onto the top of and smiled his pointy smile at me. "That's right."

"He was my mom's boyfriend once?"

He wiped his hands back and forth on his apron, adding more colorful stains to it, just like an artist, a painter. He was wearing the pink apron that usually got a smile out of me whenever I noticed it, but not now. "Your mother." He looked over at me, his head to the side. "She just about broke his heart in two."

"What happened?" I moved closer, clearing my throat. "Please?"

He went back to work on his cupcake. "She told me she was quitting, gave me her notice. There was nothing Pete could do to stop her. He tried, all right. He asked her to marry him."

My heart missed its next beat as an image of my mother in a white dress flashed through my mind. My mother smiling, happy, welcoming a man and a baby. Welcoming love.

I covered my mouth as if I'd spoken the words out loud.

"I told him myself she wasn't the marrying kind."

The image disappeared like a puff of smoke and that was fine. It shouldn't have been there in the first place. I lowered my hand.

"She was a flitter. I've been around. I know one when I see one."

"A flitter?"

"Can't stay in one place too long."

I went over to the counter he was working on, pulled a flattened pastry box out from beneath the cabinet and started building it, following the indented lines into a square. "Would it be weird, do you think, if I called Peter? To ask him about her?"

He took the box from me, slipped a paper doily inside, patting it down, and then moved the cupcake into the box with care. I closed the lid and began to tie a ribbon around it.

"How's about I give him a call? See what he says."

Leaving work an hour later than usual, I ran to my aunt's car, holding my coat over me to shield my head from pounding rain. When next my phone rang, it was Mr. Alistair. Afraid he might tell me that Peter didn't want to talk to me, I waited silently, not asking any of the questions that were working their way through my tongue. But he said Pete would meet me in the bakery after the new year. He wanted to talk face to face.

It was then, that very moment, still in the car, when I started picturing what I would wear for my meeting with Peter.

.

At the school, the carnival, Max and Josh run off on their own almost before Edward throws the car in park. The rest of us walk at a slow pace toward the maze. We take the long, dark way through a little bit of woods, over a small bridge crossing a creek. From this direction we climb up the hill to the football field.

The stadium lights are on, making everything look like day even though the sky beyond the light is swamp-black. We all have shadows. The maze is about a hundred feet in front of us. There is one way in and one way out, and a hundred different corners to get lost in. We stand there just looking for a minute. It's huge, holly garlands decorating the top, and the entrance has mistletoe hung at its center. Some kids step right under it on purpose, waiting, others scoot along as close to the edges of the hay bales as possible, just to avoid getting an uninvited kiss.

Isabella's hair, high in a ponytail, falls in a smooth line down her back. I can't resist running my fingers through the ends. My ponytail always ends at the base of my neck, not because my hair is that much shorter than hers, but because of how all the curls scrunch it up.

Feeling my tugs, she turns toward me and smiles. "We should each go through separately and see who comes out the other end first."

And so we do.

I'm the first to enter. Isabella will count to ten before she enters, and so on, until James. We figure us girls should get a head start since the guys have the advantage of already knowing the maze. They helped build it.

My upcoming meeting with Peter still hovers at the outskirts of my brain as I enter the maze, mud from this afternoon's rain squishing under my boots.

The wetness all around mixes the smell of freshly mowed grass and the sweet scent of hay, turning it into something putrid that flares up whenever the wind hits my face.

Signs stating no climbing or jumping are sporadically posted on the hay stacks. I still see kids climbing.

I round corners, left turn, right, and just when I think I've got it, I reach a dead end. Laughter is all around and then screams and more laughter. It's storybook like. I can't help but laugh, too, when I almost run dead into someone.

She isn't laughing. She's near tears.

"Out of my way," Lauren says, and yes, she's definitely crying.

"Lost?" I ask.

"It's a maze, isn't everyone lost?" More tears stream from her eyes. She wipes them with the edge of her jacket sleeve and takes a deep breath. Her hair, the color of the hay, is messier than I've ever seen it. Even when we were little and running around it wasn't this messy. In this moment she looks young again. I remember how she used to smile when she whispered about a boy she liked, when she whispered that I was her best friend.

_Let's be best friends forever_, she had said, swinging my hand, whispering, _like sisters_.

Kids have all the potential in the world when they're seven, and they seem to know it, too. Where does it go? How does it disappear?

I remember practicing my handstands, leaning my feet against the wall for support, and I'd stay like that as the blood rushed to my head. I pretended that I could feel the planet rotating, and it turned me upside down. I held the earth in my hands. The whole earth.

"You're crying."

"Yeah, no shit." She sniffles and starts digging through her purse. "I could've sworn I had a pack of Kleenex in here. I always have Kleenex."

"What's wrong?"

"Like I'd tell you." She kind of laughs, and I return a sarcastic laugh of my own.

"I don't see anyone else asking."

This starts her crying all over again. I don't feel sorry for her, not an ounce.

"It's not like you know when your boyfriend will dump you. You can't be_ prepared_ for it. It's not like you can just hold your friends' hands just in case."

Ben broke up with her in the maze? Okay, I almost feel sorry for her. Even though there was probably some fight. I'm sure she deserved it.

"Why am I expecting you to understand? Have you even ever had a boyfriend?"

I kind of a cackle and fold my arms across my chest.

The thing about being picked on, about being the subject of ridicule as a kid, even if you eventually find your way out of it, it sticks with you. It, this ridicule, becomes a part of your life. And when you look back and think about it, it can still hurt. As I'm looking at Lauren now, I think back and I ask myself why? Why did I take this from Lauren and the rest of them for so long? Why did I take it, and still wish in some corner-bone of my body that they'd all accept me? If only they'd accept me, we could be friends. It should have been me who was ever _un_-accepting of them.

"You know? I used to think that if you were just nice to me, we could be friends again. I mean, I used to actually hope that one day we would be friends again. Isn't that crazy and just... _sad?_"

"Do you have a point?"

"You don't see it? If we were friends, you'd have someone who cares about you right now. Someone right here." I pretend to look around. "But I don't see anyone nearby resembling that description."

"Kick me while I'm down. That's really nice."

I pretend to gasp. "Oh, is that what I'm doing? I'm surprised you recognize it."

She makes a "psh" sound. It's the kind of sound that's supposed to say, "You're crazy," but you know it actually means the person understands you completely.

"You know," I move in closer, begin quietly, like I'm sharing a secret. " I wrote a poem once about a girl who couldn't see herself for who she really was. She thought she was everything she wasn't." I back away a tad, speak a little louder, my words becoming more and more clipped. "At the time I thought she was incapable of seeing the truth, seeing how _ugly_ she was underneath her makeup, her curled hair, her brand name outfits. But now I don't think that's true. I was wrong. She isn't incapable of seeing her true self. She's afraid."

"Was that poem about you?" She tilts her head at me, her tone of voice and the exaggerated look of innocence on her face showing her sarcasm. She appears unaffected, but I know now what a front that is. I'd just witnessed her crying. She isn't untouchable; she just likes to pretend she is.

I nod at her. "Go ahead and think that. It's easier for you."

I hear her shouting, "You're so pretentious!" at me as I move past her, take another corner, and then another, leaving Lauren there with her tears and her maybe tissues in her purse. I'm practically racing through the maze. There's adrenaline pumping through my veins like gasoline, making me faster.

When I find James outside the maze, I run up to him and start play-punching his bicep.

"Ow. What's that for?" He starts rubbing his arm.

"I'm a boxer." I punch him a few more times, circling my hands like I know what I'm doing, like I'm Popeye. "I really am. You should've seen me!"

I spin around on one foot and he laughs.

"Who'd you box?"

"Lauren. I boxed with words, and they were perfect. They just came to me and I spit them out. I feel high right now." I squint my eyes trying to look threatening. "Don't even mess with me."

He asks for details and I spill. "I totally lied, too. I told her about a fake poem I'd written. Just made it all up right there on the spot." I punch his arm again. He tries to block me. "She called me pretentious!" I hop when I say it. Lauren calling me pretentious? Such a compliment.

I remember what my mom said about my name: Victoria means victorious. Conqueror. If she was here, if she was around, I might tell her that I can live up to my name. That I am living up to it.

Big-smiling James hugs me. He squeezes tight, lifting me up off the ground. We're both high now.


	24. Flame

**In the Debris**

**Flame**

**Victoria**

The moon is in my poetry, and it's written all over my room.

A drowning moon sinking into clouds is penciled slant-wise at the corner of my desk.

The moon made of paper all torn apart and taped together is scribbled around the rubber midsole of a pair of shoes. _This is where fulfillment can either end or begin_, I've written along the shoe.

There is a ribbon that holds a picture frame, hanging on the wall, and on the ribbon I've inked a poem about a person tied to the moon. She keeps trying to release herself only to find another limb is attached. She's stuck, floating there in the night sky.

On the back of my iPod cover I've written that if the moon was music it would be the most beautiful white noise, the kind you could either laugh with or fall asleep to. It would be a constant hum you forgot was there, but it would not forget about you.

Over the waiting weeks, paper was not a solid enough medium for my poems, and my itching fingers were too impatient to go for my poetry book anyway, so I wrote on the closest surface I could find.

And today is the day.

I finish off a poem before I go. It's on my thigh in magic marker. I write of the shine of the moon after it rains; I remind myself that the moon can't drown. _It's impossible_, I write, with an exclamation point at the end. And in my own way, instead of being tied to the moon, I've tied the moon to myself.

Smoothing my dress over my thighs, over my poem, I check my reflection in the mirror. It's a sort of loose fitting tank-dress with a busy pattern in thin lines of black, gray, and white that, from far away and with the low-light in my room, the whole thing is left looking silverish - like starlight. Pulling my winter coat on, I wish for just a second that I had a dressier coat, but I don't, so there's no point in wishing. And since I don't have a fancy coat, I may as well not be bothered by the knit hat I pull over my hair, either. I can see it's snowing out my window, and even walking from the front door to my aunt's car, my nose and ears will turn instant pink from the cold, and my hair could be covered in snowflakes if not for the hat. I wrap a scarf around my neck, and tug boots on, and then when I look in the mirror, I see everyday Victoria, but with pink knee caps - not exactly the look I pictured going in to meet this man for the first time. This potential... _someone_.

I still won't allow myself to think further than someone.

I hum to myself to keep my mind from traveling down those avenues involuntarily, from taking turns down alleyways I'd rather not explore. The dreams these past few nights were difficult enough. Dreams of the man in the cabin turning into Peter, who I've never seen. Calling me daughter. Smiling.

No.

I hum.

Peter comes all the way from Tacoma, over a three hour drive. He's already at the shop when the bell announces my arrival. Turning from the newspaper he's been reading, he folds it and stands to greet me. He says hello, and I say nothing, tilting my neck to look way up at him, searching for any resemblance in his blond hair, his sleek face, his smile. The only similarity I see is in the color of his eyes: brown. Brown eyes are everywhere.

And his eyes aren't even all brown, either. They're more like hazel-brown.

He says, "Let's have a slice of pie."

I hang my hat, coat, and scarf on the coat rack and move behind the counter, slicing up his choice of pie. He chooses blueberry, and I cut two slices. I'm in no mind to make my own choice.

I heat them up, adding some vanilla ice cream to the top.

I serve us both at the table like I'm a waitress. I tell him to be careful, the plate is hot. It's the first thing I say to him. "Be careful."

He thanks me.

We sit and munch on the warm pie for a little while. It's a shame that I don't really taste it as it goes down, too distracted by my own thoughts, my questions, the possible answers.

"So," he finally says. "Char's your mother."

I nod, the fork still in my mouth. I chew slowly to procrastinate even longer.

"You look a lot like her. Your hair. Your eyes."

"My eyes are brown."

He places his fork on his plate, like he's afraid he might break it if he isn't careful. "It's their shape," he says. "The way you look out through them, in thought,_ thinking_."

"Everybody always thinks. They can't help it."

He swallows, clears his throat, sits back, his wrists resting up against the table. They're the manners my aunt taught me, no elbows on the table. "Not everyone thinks the same way as your mom. She was inside her head a lot, introspective."

I wipe my hands on my napkin, dab my lips, and then do what I did just before I left my room: smooth my dress over my legs, reminding myself of the poem that's there. I will not drown here.

"How long did you know her? Before she left?"

"About three years."

"I've got you beat by two." I close my mouth, look out the window, and a part of me wishes I was somewhere else, anywhere else, with Lauren, even. I glance over at my jacket, hanging by the door. My phone's in there.

It had been Peter's choice to meet after the shop closed so we wouldn't be interrupted. I thought that was a great idea at first, but now I'm begining to hate it.

"Hey, are you all right?"

"Fine." I try to smile. _Just a little crazy_, I think.

"Listen, if you have questions for me, I'll answer them."

My eyes are focused out the window again. There's a thin layer of snow over the wood deck, there are car tire streaks in the street. I turn back to Peter. He looks kind, or like he's trying to look kind. "Did you ever stand with my mom and look out at the lake?"

He tugs on his chin. "The river. Definitely the river, right behind the shop. Many times. But the lake? I don't think so. Not that I recall."

"She probably never noticed the lake. Or the river. Or the trees. The only thing she ever noticed was what she saw in the mirror staring back at her." I fall back in my seat folding my arms. When you say something like that, so sure of yourself, the way to punctuate it is by folding your arms, and somehow your body just knows this.

Peter's arms aren't folded. They're still resting on the table and he leans forward, not backward. "Do you know how I met your mother? I was working here, it was Thanksgiving time, and out in Port Angeles, there was this soup kitchen. My dad wanted me to take some pastries over there and hand them out. The dessert for the homeless or the less fortunate. 'They should get gourmet, too,' he told me. I didn't want to go. I had friends to hang with, you know? I had my own turkey to enjoy with my cousins. All of that. But my dad - Mr. Baker, Mr. Bleeding-heart, made me go."

He says that my mom was there in a short little dress, in heels, a bandana wrapped around her hair - he couldn't see the color of her hair, but when he did, when she took the bandana off, and her hair tumbled down, it looked a lot like mine, he tells me - and she was stirring the chili. He thought she was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen and struck up a conversation with her. When he learned she was from Forks, too, he flat out offered her a job at his dad's shop. He knew this couldn't be the last time he ever spoke to her.

"She must've been forced to be there, too, like you," I say.

"That's what I thought at the time. But no, she said she wanted to get out of Thanksgiving dinner with her family. Her mother, in particular, was driving her crazy."

"Well, see, that's why then."

"Victoria, there are hundreds of ways to get out of Thanksgiving dinner with your family. A soup kitchen might be one of them, but they didn't know. She never told them where she was going. She just went. She never told her mother where she went, because when she did, her mother wouldn't leave her alone about it."

I feel my eyes heat up and start to water and I blink fast. "I don't know who she is. I'm so confused." I cover my face with my hands and breathe a few times. I will not cry in front of him. I start to wish James was here. He'd do something. He'd make me smile or laugh right now.

I drop one of my hands to my poemed-thigh. I remember not to drown. Drowning here is impossible. I take a breath. I'm carrying the moon like it's a balloon. I'm _that_ strong.

I feel a touch, light on my wrist. "Your mother is just a person who's had hard times. But that's what she is. She's just a person. Not all good, not all bad. Not happy, either. If she was happy, well... you know. You know where she'd be."

"Why did she leave?"

"Who knows, really? I was meant to take over the business - Char knew this - I'm convinced that's part of the reason she took off. One of the last things she said to me before she left was, 'I can't be stuck here.' She said there's a whole world out there and she wasn't about to handcuff herself to a place like Forks."

"Handcuff," I say.

"That's what she said."

"But you didn't take over the shop."

"Nope. Not yet, anyway. After she took off, I went looking for her for a while. And when I gave up, came home without her, understanding she didn't want to be found, there was a letter waiting for me."

He doesn't tell me what the letter said and I don't ask.

"She wrote to me about once a month for a year, and I still get letters from her from time to time. Sometimes with a return address, sometimes without. But that doesn't matter because I decided a long time ago not to go looking for her anymore."

"She still writes to you?"

He nods. "Sometimes. My wife doesn't like it, and I don't write back because of that, but I read her letters."

"Do you have any idea where she is now? Or where she might be?"

"Victoria, honey, listen, okay?" He leans forward and this sad look takes over his eyes and his voice gets this remorseful quality, like he's feeling sorry for me. Pity. "The last letter I got from her, she was in a rehab facility out in Northern California." Hearing these words, even knowing of this possibility, my whole body goes cold. "She called it a retreat in her letter. And the one before that, she was talking about her friend Maggie."

"Maggie who? Do you know her?"

He shakes his head. "She's never mentioned her last name. But she's lived with her off and on over the years, first in Arizona and later in California."

I think back to Arizona, my earliest memories, another set of hands lifting me, not my mother's. Was that Maggie? I have no way of knowing. I can't even see a face. "Do you have Maggie's address?"

"Sorry." He shakes his head again. "I have the address of the rehab at home - on the envelope. I can get it for you."

He tells me he'll call me with it.

We stop talking about my mom, and he tells me about his kids, a boy and a girl, ten and thirteen. I wonder what color their hair is. Red? Blond? I don't ask.

The conversation is lighter now, easier, smiles and even some laughs.

When he stands up to leave, my heart tightens and my throat swells. I want him to stay longer. But what can I say? He has no reason to stay any longer.

He washes our plates and forks - he insists. I clean our table.

Together we walk toward the door where he helps me with my coat, pulls my scarf around my neck, squishes my hat over my head. He smiles.

This is how he is as a dad. My eyes water up.

Before he pushes the door open, making the bell jingle, he says, "I loved your mom, but she made it very clear that she was not one to commit to anyone. I had this innocent hope I could change that." He sighs, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "But you know what that is? That's water under the bridge. I moved on, have my own life now, my own family."

We stare at each other and I wonder if he's thinking the same thing I am: _Are we family?_

"Peter?" I say. "Is it okay... before you go. Can I give you a hug?"

He opens his arms and holds me tight. My head barely comes to his chest, he's so tall. "You're a beautiful girl, all the better parts of Char."

I don't tell him that I'm convinced my best parts come from my dad.

When we leave he watches as I drive away first, tires streaking through snow. And I feel way above ground, not drowned. In all my life, I've never drowned and I never will. I feel silly for ever thinking of the possibility.

When I get home, I wash the poem off my thigh. It smears.

I don't need it anymore.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

My guitar tags along with us, lying in the backseat. I know I'll feel like playing by the time we leave the pub.

At school today, Isabella told me Newton was having an _After New Year's New Year's_ party and that she wanted to go. There was no way that was happening. Not for me.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Not Newton's."

She again asked me why.

"For starters I probably won't even be let in. I kicked him out of my party."

"If you're with me you'll get in."

"You got pull with Newton?"

All she did was laugh. Why do girls answer questions with laughter, like that suffices?

"He's a dick. He's been a dick to Victoria for years and he can't keep his mouth shut."

She stopped pressing.

"I'll take you out." I put my arm around her. "Somewhere better."

.

Garrett's already playing when we get there, his voice low and steady, matching his strums. Just his guitar, his mic, and him on a stool on the all-black stage. Well, and his drink by his feet. Looks like water but it's vodka.

The pub is as dark as always, the only light the spotlight over the stage and the flickering from candles on tables.

Still early for a Friday night, there are few people here. It'll get busier later. I lead her to the smallest corner table, where we sit close, and I take her hand. "You want a drink? I don't get carded here."

"Are you drinking?"

I do want to order a drink, but because of the promise I made to myself, I decide not to and when I tell her I'm not drinking, she says she isn't drinking either and we both order Cokes.

"Are you never going to drink again?"

I slurp from the straw and think about her question. I haven't thought that far ahead. I've only thought about the now, only know that I'm trying to follow rules my mom set that I never followed while she was alive. I lean in and whisper, "I don't know what I'm doing."

She leans in. "Like, in life? In general?"

I pull her chair closer to me and wrap my arm around her, not in the mood for any conversation that involves explanation. "You're the only thing I'm sure about." I kiss the top of her head. "Listen to the music."

"I like his sound," she says, staring at the stage.

"It's all his. He writes it. No covers ever. He doesn't believe in covers. He says he won't play anything that came from someone else's soul. And this is the only place he plays. It's his place. He told me once he'd never go for fame even if it sat right down in his lap. This is it for him, small crowds, people he knows and who know him. Something about that is so real. Like real, personal, deep inside art."

I haven't talked to Garrett in months and don't plan on it tonight. He was a friend of my mother's and I'm not ready to deal with that yet. I'm hoping he doesn't even notice me here.

I feel a hand on my face and turn to Isabella.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"What?"

"You got quiet."

"I've been quiet." I frown.

"No, but your face got quiet." Her thumb moves over my cheek.

I pull my arm from around her shoulder, grip my glass with both hands, turning it around a few times, and then I lean forward on my forearms against the table like I'm looking deep into my drink. I can't talk to her about this. Not yet.

"You're a mystery sometimes."

"I'd say the same about you."

"Unwrap this one?" Her hand covers my fist on the table, and I let it relax.

"I played with him once."

"Is that a sad thing? Because you haven't played with him since, or something?"

I sigh and give her a little more, as much as I can, all that I'm capable of at this moment. "My mom and I played with him. And my mom used to play with him a lot." I swallow, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and look away from her, but I can't look at the stage either so I turn toward the bar on the other side of Isabella.

My mother's voice after our set: "We're doing that again." She kissed my cheek. That was two weeks before she passed away. We never played together again. I didn't think this through, bringing Isabella here. I'm thinking Newton's might have been the better option. I try to blink away the burning that won't let up. My knee starts bobbing up and down. It's the movement holding me together.

Lips on my jaw draw my attention back to Isabella. After I make eye contact, she blows out the candle, leaving us in shadows, so when a couple of tears fall, nobody can see them. Maybe she can't even see them.

I lean forward, arms on my knees, and take her hand in both of mine, play with her fingers. "I guess Newton's party might've-"

"No." She slides her fingers down my face. _God, I love it when I feel her nails_. And then her hand rests at the back of my neck, and I follow her slight tug, letting my forehead fall to her collarbone, her fingers roaming through the ends of my hair, nails again.

"You're sharing something with me by bringing me here, and I love you so much for that."

I lift my head and she kisses me. I pull her onto my lap and kiss her deeper for recognizing that, for knowing me better than she thinks she does, and for not pushing for further explanations. When I pull away, she kisses my cheek. My eyes close and my heart pounds with this need I have for her. It's sharp, this beat, and my hand kind of makes a fist, pushing into my chest. I've never needed anything like this before, never needed someone the way I need her. And it scares the hell out of me.

"You okay?"

"I love you." I reach up, my palms along her cheeks sliding up until my fingers are buried in her hair. "I don't think I say that enough." I think the last time I told her was after that first time we made love. And still, I can't tell her how deep this love goes because it would probably scare her, too.

Her hand pulls my face toward hers and she stares into my eyes, her fingers falling down my face a few times. Slowly she smiles. She plants her lips on mine, arms around my neck, fingernails again in my hair.

We kiss through the rest of the song. We kiss until my heart is pumping out a new tune, one that's both relaxed and alive in Isabella.

"We can come back another time," she says with shallow breaths.

I nod, take her hand and we hightail it out of there.

Isabella drives so I can play guitar. I've already finished a song and she tells me to play another one.

"Sing," she says.

"Always trying to get me to sing." I've told her a hundred times I don't sing.

"I like your voice. It's soothing."

"Don't think it's a good idea to lull you to sleep right now. You're driving."

"Sing."

I strum some notes, and the smile is so apparent in my own voice, even I can hear it when I sing a line of_ Kumbaya_.

She laughs and I just start strumming, not playing any song.

"Do you know how sexy guys with guitars are?"

"Which guys?" I look over and strum a C chord.

"This guy." She reaches to squeeze my leg.

"Senna needs a new name."

She agrees. "I've thought that since the day you told me who she's named after."

"Any ideas?"

"Let's let fate decide. Whatever the next road sign says is her new name."

"No matter what it says?"

"Your guitar is named after some old lady, Edward. I don't think it can get much worse than that."

"She was twenty."

"Still. Okay, close your eyes and when I say open them, read the first sign you see, and there's your name."

I close my eyes. She takes her time telling me to open them. Her fingers crawl over me and do some sort of dance on my stomach that makes me scrunch up and my knees lift. Another time she pinches my cheek. I swat at her hand. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Are you ready?"

"Uh… I've been _waiting_."

"Open."

I look for the next sign. Pope Street. "My guitar's name is Pope."

"Looks like your guitar is transgendered. I'm sure he's much happier as Pope."

"I don't think I want her to be a he."

"Sometimes life doesn't give you a choice."

I dig through the glove compartment for the pick I know is there.

"Okay, Pope. Let's see what ya got." I play a little Hendrix riff. Some _Red House_.

"Your mom taught you that?"

I look over at her. "Yeah."

"Still, that guitar's definitely a guy. I don't know how you didn't figure it out sooner."

"Fucking Jasper."

"Hey, I would've made you change the name right away if it was named after someone_ you_ once slept with." She takes her eyes off the road for a second to look at me. "Wait, you didn't sleep with Senna, did you?"

"No." I strum a chord along with my answer. "I've never slept with anyone Jasper slept with. Actually, I thought you would be the first... Never mind, you know what I thought." My hope for her not to ask anymore questions is squashed in the next second.

"Did you sleep with any older women?"

"What do you consider older?"

"I heard about seniors from last year. But anyone over twenty?"

"Not that I know of." I cringe at that answer because I know it will only raise more questions. "And not that many seniors either. Don't believe all the rumors you hear." I try to drop the subject, play some more Hendrix, but she puts her hand over mine against the guitar.

"How many girls have there been?"

I let the guitar slide down my leg, settling the pick through the strings.

"There's only one now." I take her hand off the steering wheel and link my fingers with hers. "One."

"If you don't give me some kind of number, I'm going to think the worst and think you're as gross as Jasper. Or at least that you _were_ as gross as him."

"Not as many as Jasper, but how many are a lot? How many would make me gross?"

"I don't know. I've only been with one so I don't know what's gross, really. You give me a round about number and I'll tell you if gross comes to mind."

She hasn't let go of my hand, or even tried, so I take that as a sign that she's okay with the conversation so far. I bring her hand to my lips. "There haven't been that many different girls. There's been a few one-nighters and a few others a lot of different times. Maybe seven or eight girls. Definitely less than fifteen."

"Less than fifteen or less than eight? Because you said seven or eight."

I feel her hand wriggling from mine and I cover it with my other hand. "No. Stay here." My heartbeat speeds up fast enough for me to be aware of it, and I wonder if this conversation is really going to have her seeing me differently. I've never counted the girls, don't keep track like Jasper does. I close my eyes and think back, hoping I can tell her less than eight. I remember the first girl, Heidi, and the last girl before Isabella, Heidi again. The number I come up with gives me relief and I do a recount to make sure it wasn't wishful thinking the first time.

"Eight. Before you. You're the ninth. Is that okay? Are you okay with that?"

"You can't ask me for permission for something you did before you even knew me."

"I know, but I didn't know until right now how much I don't want you to think I'm gross." She wriggles her hand free of mine and I let her go, looking out the window, hating what I used to be. But when I feel her fingers rubbing back and forth on my cheek less than a second later, I turn toward her.

"I'd never think you're gross. I'm sorry I put it that way. I was mostly kidding about that anyway."

I turn to kiss her palm. Her hand takes mine back.

She stops at the light that leads to her neighborhood. "But there's a real reason why I asked that might offend you."

"What is it?"

"I'm on birth control now, so if you're, you know. If you know you're clean, we don't have to use condoms. I don't mean clean, you know? I mean healthy."

She's the first girl who's ever asked me this before and I wish I could tell her that I know I'm clean. Instead I have to tell her that I'll get tested. And I realize that a guy can actually feel like a slut, contrary to popular opinion.

I ask her if she can come to the pool house with me before going home. "I want to do something for you that I've never done for anyone else before."

She noses the car out of her neighborhood, rolling in the opposite direction toward my house.

.

In the poolhouse I lean Pope up against the wall closest to the door. I'll set him on his stand later. I take Isabella's bag and let it fall, backing her up toward the bed, planting kisses down her face.

I kick of my shoes, take off my shirt. She kisses my shoulder, my neck, and her fingers are on my arms, moving up. I drop my head.

"Bella, Isabella," I whisper against her throat as I unbutton my pants.

"You're goose-bumping me," she sighs.

I lift her shirt off. "Lie back."

I step out of my jeans.

My lips trail down her chest as my fingers work at her bra clasp. It takes a few tugs before I get it right.

My mouth is on her, all over her, down, lower. I pull her boots off; it takes a hard tug. I laugh and then slip her jeans down, kissing over her panties. Her feet, free of jeans, drop to the bed again, one at a time on either side of my shoulders. Her back arches, and I slip my hands under her hips, pulling her closer to my mouth. A sound comes from her, a whimper. I slide her underwear off, her legs straighten out and she kicks a little to help me get them off, or to tell me to get them off faster. Her legs come together, bent at the knees. I sweep my hands down her thighs to part them; I look at her eyes, a little wet, not with sadness. "This is it. The thing I've never done before." I kiss her knee and down the inside of her thigh. "Tell me what's good."

My lips move lower with each kiss. Her legs are a little stiff when I try to open them wider, so I stop pressing. And then when I'm there, fingers and open-mouthed, I hear a sigh from Isabella and her legs fall apart.

"Edward, I can't breathe when you do that."

"Breathe."

She breathes, fast and heavy. And then soon, her breathing does seem to stop completely. I know how close she is. She's squirming, can't be still, pushing her hips at me. I go and go, my fingers and tongue, until she's gone.

"Edw-Ed…" Gone.

Her legs fall flat and she pulls me up fast by my arms, right on top of her. She holds me tight enough I can't even move. I can break from her grasp if I really want to, but I don't want to. I try to roll us on our sides, though. She holds tighter.

"Don't move."

"I think I'm crushing you."

"I like when you crush me."

I laugh a little, kissing her over and over on her shoulder.

"You've really never done that before?" Her hold releases and I lift up to look at her.

"No."

"Why not?" Her hands slide up and down the backs of my arms.

I scoot to my side and kiss her breast. She wiggles. "It seemed too… close. Too-" I sweep my fingers down the center of her torso "-something."

"Intimate?"

"Yeah, I guess that was it."

"You're so not gross, Edward. You're really, really sweet. You might not have saved your virginity, but you saved something."

"Bella." I caress her face, swipe a finger across her lips. "Thank you for tonight." My face is dead-serious, but she still laughs and hits my chest.

"Really? I should be thanking you, right?"

I catch her hand, her fingers. "No, really. At the pub? Thank you."

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Thank you for reading, readers! And thank you for all the reviews, rec's, and tweets! It amazes me how supportive you are!

Happy Birthday to Ireen H! And thank you to the girls who write with me and continue to inspire me.

Hey, if you have a twitter, I'm believeitornott and I love to chat with fandom folk. :D


	25. Remains

Hi!

Strange A/N at the top just to mention there's a longer A/N at the bottom. And to apologize? Because I've read how some of you hate long A/N's, but this one is a good message and a request to just spread the word, and maybe you've already heard about it and you can just skip it. It's about peace and global peace day.

Okay, and also, I've collaborated on a new one-shot. Details below. Shutting up for now. :)

* * *

><p><strong>In the Debris<strong>

**Remains**

**Edward**

My bed's a mess of gnarled sheets and a comforter that is only holding on to one corner of the mattress.

Isabella's sitting on my lower back rubbing my shoulders while I'm reading to her from_ Jane Eyre_.

Jane. Eyre.

She's a manipulator. Not Jane, Isabella.

Her argument was that I had kept her up all night and now she's behind on her reading, and she can't read one sentence without falling asleep. So she asked me to read to her.

The last book I want to read out loud from is_ Jane Eyre_. But when she said she'd rub my shoulders if I did it, I caved and took off my shirt.

I can't figure out which feels better, her hands on my shoulders or her weight on my back.

I turn another page.

"Stop skipping paragraphs!" She squeezes my shoulders tight.

"Ow!" My shoulders cringe. "I'm not."

"Yes, you are." She tells me I can't fool her, she's read it before.

"If you've read it before, why do you need me to read it now?"

"I can't remember it."

I turn around, grab her by the waist and put her under me. "If you can't remember it, how do you know I'm skipping parts?" I kiss her so she can't answer me. I already know her answer will somehow be rational anyway.

Esme's right. I'm going to have to talk to my father about Isabella.

She brought it up to me last week. I'd been coming through the kitchen when I saw them - caught them - my dad standing behind Esme with his arms around her. His head was dropped to her shoulder and his eyes were closed. She saw me frozen there for a second, but still I tried to sneak by as if unnoticed.

"Edward," she said. "I'd like to talk to you." With a hand on my back, she pushed me all the way to the living room and then glanced behind her like she was worried we'd been followed.

She spoke low. "I want you to know that I haven't said anything to your dad about Isabella."

I cocked my head, kind of frowning at her because I wasn't sure I believed her.

"After that morning, that morning in Max's room." She nodded as if to say,_ You remember which day._ "I decided it was none of my business. But he knows by now. He's seen her truck here enough times on his way to the hospital in the morning."

And so she said that it would be best if I was the one who talked to him about it and not her.

A week later, Isabella under me, her skin in my mouth, I've finally decided it's time to get it over with.

The next time my father's at home, I do it.

He's pouring a glass at the bar as I pass. Esme has taken Max to the movies, but I go to his room anyway. I wait up here, for what, I have no clue. The whole time I'm sitting on Max's bed with my head in my hands, the thought is burrowing into my mind that I have to face my father before his next drink.

He's watching football, throwing back swallows of his highball when I get downstairs. "Seven to nothing," he says.

I stand in my spot, not knowing where or how to begin. We have these big, plush leather theater seats in here that recline. He bought them weeks ago when he got his new bed. My mother never wanted them. I remember the argument they had over it. My mother, as usual, had won. She was the only one who could ever win an argument with him, and here I may be about to start one and attempt to win.

He's not reclined in his seat now, and he's still wearing his tie. He's watching the game in his tie. Or maybe he's staying dressed for some other reason. Plans later? Definitely not a surgery if he's drinking. He turns to me.

"Something on your mind?"

I take a deep breath, opening and then closing my hands, before I blurt it out. "I'm seeing Isabella. We're dating." I clench my jaw.

"And?"

"We're like-" I glance at the TV and back at my father "-we're serious."

"You're serious." His voice holds its typical apathetic tone, although I know this means that inside he isn't apathetic. It's a show. He clears his throat and shifts around to face me. "It sounds an awful lot like you're asking for my blessing."

"Your blessing? I don't need your blessing. You being nice to her would be great."

"You're going on nineteen and you've never been true to a girl. I don't think it's my treatment of her you should be concerning yourself with."

I wince, but stand firm. I can't let him derail me. "It's different with Isabella. I - I love her." I fall into the seat beside him as if this admission to my father has taken all my strength out of me. And maybe it has.

"You haven't told her this, have you?" It's the way he says it, the wording and how he's setting his glass down in the cup-holder of his seat to loosen his tie. It's as if he's asked me to admit I've committed a crime.

Dropping my head, I rub the back of my neck, my own way of loosening my tie. "Yes, I have." I search his face, looking for anything going on in his eyes, but there's nothing. He's silent and expressionless, as if the conversation's over. "Not everything comes down to money."

"Have I said a word about money? It's certainly on your mind, though. And for good reason." He gets up, walks out of the room, and I follow him to the bar where, with miniature tongs, he clunks ice cubes from the silver ice bucket into two glasses. He mixes a couple of highballs, dribbling them over the ice, and tosses an olive in each one. He hands me a glass. I don't reach for it.

"You're going to pretend you don't drink? Are you driving anywhere tonight?"

"No."

He pushes the drink into my hand. "We're having a talk. Man to man."

I take a swallow. It's strong but I've had stronger.

"You're a smart guy. But there are some things in life you can only learn through experience, and if you have an opportunity to learn through someone else before making your own mistakes, all the better. Wouldn't you agree?"

I don't answer. I can feel him working something on me. He may have called me smart, but he's smarter. He's a master at exuding power over people, trapping them like fish in a net, getting what he wants before he lets them go. I have to walk into this conversation carefully if I'm going to come out of it with what I want.

"When you're a Cullen in this town, hell in this part of the state, it's no secret what you come from."

"This isn't about money."

"When you come from money, it's always about money. As much as you think this girl might love you, you have to consider the fact that she doesn't come from money and you do. You don't understand how people like them view people like us. You don't have the experience. We're a fantasy to them. And to a young girl like Isabella Swan, you're a dream come true. Good looking guy like you, the money you flaunt. I bet she has stars in her eyes when she looks at you."

I flinch when he says this. Always hitting below the belt without even trying, kicking me in the balls. I want to tell him to go to hell, but that'll make everything worse. If I could kiss the man's ass I might be able to get somewhere with him, but I'm not about to do that. The thought of condescending to that makes me sick. I put my glass down on the bar. Holding the drink _he_ poured for me gives him power. When I lean forward to set it down, he has to step back. "You haven't even given Isabella a chance."

"And you've given her too much of one."

I return to the living room just to see if he follows. This is a game and it's about who's in the lead. He has something to prove to me and I have something to prove to him, and it's all about who has the upper hand.

He follows.

I'm close to telling him what I gave Isabella for Christmas; how I'd had it professionally wrapped up like jewelry with shiny paper and gold ribbons; how when she'd opened it and saw that it was hair conditioner, she'd acted like I'd just given her the ocean. It was for my shower so she could stop bringing her own. I'd checked her bottle to make sure I got the kind she likes. But I can't tell my father this. It will turn the conversation into something else entirely - into showers and the poolhouse and Isabella spending the night.

While I think carefully over what else I can say, weigh my words, he speaks.

"You've got to stick with someone in your own class."

"Someone like Heidi, right?"

"Don't think I don't know how you mistreated her. You know I have to face her father."

I don't tell him how she was the one who came on to me in the beginning. And later how she'd meet me in the pool house before I moved out there, walking in, hands on my shoulders, lifting her skirt, nothing underneath, sitting on my lap. I shake the memories away. That isn't me anymore.

"Learned from the best, didn't I? You really working these late nights or are you fuckin' around on Esme like you did Mom?"

"Nice." He nods his head and shuts his eyes up tight, actually looking pained.

I swallow hard.

"Respectful, aren't you?"

I build myself up inside, ignore thoughts that I've hurt him. I have the power now and I have to hold on to it. "There's nothing you can say that will make me think Isabella's after money. She isn't like that. And you're wrong. Money isn't everything,_ Carlisle_."

"Is that so?" He almost laughs, which has me back up, back away. Back off? I step forward again. Some play happens on TV, the crowd cheers, the announcers talk too loud. My father picks up the remote and shuts the power off. And in all of that, he doesn't miss a beat. "You walk this interesting reluctant rich guy walk, but you never turn down the money I offer you. How about I stop handing it over? Then you'll understand exactly what money is. If you yourself can't go without my money, then maybe you'll see how much money matters."

"Go ahead. Stop giving it to me." It comes out weak. And he knows it. I try harder. "You don't get it. Money can do a lot. It can buy you almost anything you want, I guess. Unless the thing you want most can't be bought."

"And what is it that can't be bought?"

I clear my throat. The answer is obvious, but for some reason he wants me to say it. I put strength behind my voice. "Love."

He stares at me, this man who's considered some kind of genius as a surgeon and he can't seem to comprehend what I'm saying. "Money is more meaningful to people than love. The sooner you admit this the better."

"I don't think so. You're wrong. Look at Mom. All of our money, and she wasn't happy. She loved you and you wouldn't give her what she needed."

My father actually starts laughing. My eyes widen and I sit down fast. The entire atmosphere has changed and I can feel the weight of the room, of the house, of his laugh.

"_Love,_" he says, "you keep talking as if you know anything about it."

"I know it isn't connected to money. It's like you think one goes with the other. And if that's true, why did Mom cry all the time? This thing with Esme. Was it going on back then? Or was it other women? Did she know? Did my mother know what you were doing behind her back?" And there it is. The question I've been dreading the answer to.

"It's possible."

My stomach flips over. "You_ were_ fucking around on her?"

"Speak to me with respect, son, if you want answers."

Do I want these answers? Do I? I cover my face, pressing hard, elbows out. I'm about to hate my father. Really hate him. But I do, I do need the truth.

"An affair?" is all I can manage. My chest rises with my breath, and the exhale shakes itself out of me.

"You want the truth? It isn't going to be easy to hear."

I nod once, still unsure. I keep my mouth tight and my eyes open.

"The truth is, I used to be as romantic as you. Naive."

Our eyes are locked on each other.

"She was first. She was the first to have an affair." He pauses and I'm already shaking my head. "Stop and listen. The crying you heard was likely the result of her being in love with someone else, someone with no money, and she chose money."

He uses the term gold-digger and my insides go hollow, like all my organs have dropped out of me, and I can't see clearly. And then I'm hot, sweating, my eyes heating up, burning tears welling, my nose flaring in my effort to stop them.

"Don't." I take a heavy breath. I sniff. "Don't talk about her…" I swallow something thick, and my chest heaves again and I realize these are sobs I'm swallowing. I'm about to lose it in front of my father. Every muscle in my body is tight trying to stop it. "Don't talk about her like that!" I turn my back on him, going to the mantle. A hand out, I lean against it, and drop my head into my other hand. A sob releases itself. I'm not strong enough to hold it in. And I'm not strong enough to face my father. What was I thinking? As if I could reason with him. As if anyone could.

A hand lands heavy on my shoulder. His voice is soft in a way I don't recognize. "I'm sorry this is hard to hear, but I'm tired of taking the blame. Your mother isn't around anymore so it's easy to hate me and blame me for our problems. And it's easy to lift her up on a pedestal."

I turn toward him to see him shaking his head. "She was a good mother. She loved you and Max. But she never loved me. She was in love with someone else when she married me. I knew it and she knew it, but I thought I could change that. I thought she loved me enough. She chose money over love, and it did us both in. Money is too seductive to those who don't have it. It's what I've been trying to tell you."

I think about what he's saying, and I remember my mother crying and how I cheered her up with music, how we played together, how she went from tears to laughter. Was he right? All this time I thought she was crying because my dad was gone and ignoring her, was she crying because she was in love with someone else? Was it guilt? Was it regret? No. I think I actually shake my head as I think this. He's lying.

"I _am_ sorry, Edward. But it's truth you said you wanted."

"You're a fucking liar." My voice is low, but there's a menace to it that, this time, has my father taking a step back, and I see his eyes narrow and his jaw clench, and his fists squeeze. He looks like he's about to deck me.

"Mom would not do that. She would_ not_ do that."

"She did it. Like it or not, she did. You've had it easy your whole life. You don't know what it's like not to have money. Hunger, bills, work. You've never had to do a thing to earn your money. It's been handed to you on a platinum platter, and this is what happens. The way you think you can talk to me."

If he really believes that my life is easy because of money, he'll never understand me.

"When faced with what we're talking about here, love or money, she chose money. It was the way she worked."

I hold my glare on him, try not to show any sign of fear. "I don't believe you. It's not the way she worked, and it's not the way I work."

"Yes it is. I guarantee it is. You don't want to see it that way because it isn't ideal. But ideals, as pretty as they are, have nothing to do with truth. It's the way of the world. You have money to offer, you open your wallet, and they'll take it. All of them."

"You call yourself some kind of genius?"

"I'm experienced."

"You're fucked up."

We both flinch on that one and his whole face changes, stiffens, and then all expression disappears. He's back to apathetic Carlisle. "You don't know anything about the world. I think it's time you learn."

"And you're going to teach me? No thanks."

"Let me give you a choice. Love or money."

"What?"

"You talk like you know the world. I want to see if you do. You think love is worth more than money. Prove it. Isabella or my money. Which is it?"

"Are you seriously going to do that because the person I choose for myself isn't who you would choose for me?"

"I'd do it as an experiment, to see if you really would choose love over money. This is about your choice. Test yourself, son. Get to know yourself. Get to know life without money."

I stare at him. Is he bluffing?

"Which is it?"

"So if I choose Isabella…"

"The money stops. You'll move into your old room. You give back your cars unless you can afford to buy them off me. Except your mom's. You can keep her car. She left it to you; it's rightfully yours."

How is the word "rightfully" in this man's vocabulary?

"How am I supposed to live?"

"Use your head, Edward. How do your poor friends live?"

I nod, stoic. "So, I'd get a job. And what about college?"

"You'll have your college fund to pay your tuition, your books, but that's it. You'll work out your own housing."

"And if I do this, she's allowed here, and you'll stay away from her."

"For as long as it lasts." He looks too smug. "Make your choice. Here's your chance to prove your theory to me."

No more money, no cars, no living in the guest house. I wipe my sweating neck. I look down.

"Isabella." As soon as her name leaves my mouth I see her face behind my eyes, hear her voice in my head. "Isabella." There isn't any other choice.

"Well, let's try it then. Let's test it out. Is love really worth more than money? Prove me wrong." He turns, reaching for the remote control.

"Dad, don't do this. Don't make Isabella an experiment. Don't do that to her."

"If you love her, and love is all you need, then it's not an experiment at all, is it?"

I take a deep breath, my body temperature rising again. "I'll move in tomorrow."

"You've made your decision, son. Move in tonight."

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

I'm in a stalemate, standing in my own little black square, waiting for a phone call that never comes. I stopped feeling like doing anything days ago. Other than going to school and work, there's nothing I want to do but climb into bed with my poetry book and a pen as companionship. Sometimes I just lie here practically on top of them, and other times I'm scribbling away the bones of a poem.

I'm acting like I'm nothing but a bag of bones myself, as if my flesh and blood has gone away, suctioned out of me. I'm aware I'm behaving this way, but still, I keep it up.

Not even Isabella or James could get me to go out.

"I just need some time alone," I told them and told them.

My aunt has been bringing me food in bed, assuming I'm sick, and I've gone along with the assumption.

Peter hasn't called and I can't come up with an explanation for this except he thought about it and changed his mind. He doesn't want to know, doesn't want to face it. Maybe he never even asked himself the question I thought he might have. Or maybe he's afraid of the answer and maybe the possibilities that face us, gusting toward us like wind that will hit us because we're walking right into it, bringing a responsibility or an obligation he doesn't want to take on. It could even be because of his wife and his real family. His kids.

After a week of waiting, one Sunday, my day off work, I climb out of bed in the afternoon and clunk down the stairs like I'm made of bricks. The shadow beside me shows my hair sticking out like I'm Medusa with the snakes.

My aunt made soup and she's slurping it up in the living room, watching a movie. I grab a bowl, scoop in some steaming beef vegetable soup and join her. After a while I set my empty bowl down on the table, lean against my aunt, my head on her shoulder and watch the movie with her.

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah," I say. "You know anyone named Maggie?"

"Can't say that I do. Why?"

"Nice name."

She looks at me like the crazy person I am. We laugh.

Leaning her head against mine, she asks me to catch her up on my life. What a labyrinth this is, scooting around corners, pushing certain things into dead ends. I tell her what I can.

There used to be a time when I kept close to no secrets from her. I told her almost everything. I was the girl who told her when I lost my virginity, and now I have more secrets than honesty for her. I feel like apologizing, but that will only bring questions which means more omissions or lies. And this, too, not apologizing when I want to, another secret, another thought to shove in a dead end.

So I tell her that Isabella is the best girl friend I've ever had, and I tell her I love James and he loves me but we're trying to figure everything out. Each other. And then I tell her I love her because that's as true as any secret I have, and it's something I can give her.

"I love you, too, of course." She smooths my wild hair back. "Now tell me, what's this about you and James? What are you trying to figure out?"

"It's special. The most special thing, and we can't mess it up. It's like where your heart is." I touch over my heart. "Inside your body, protected by your rib cage. But what if it wasn't protected? What if your heart was right out in the open and just the most precious, fragile thing? That's what it's like with James. It's so fragile. I felt it tear once, like crack, and I don't want that again. Ever. This is one thing in my life that can't be messed up, Aunt Cheri. No matter what else happens, I have to get this right."

She's looking at me just like she understands me, like she feels what I'm feeling.

"How do you know when it's right?" I ask.

"You feel it, like I did with your Uncle Phil."

I don't know what that means, you feel it. What does it feel like? "I feel like I have a zoo inside of me and all the animals are trampling over each other trying to escape."

She shakes her head at me with a small smile on her face. "Does your mind think like that all the time? Obviously you write poetry, but do you think in poetry all the time?"

"Doesn't everybody?"

I wonder what she'd say if she knew how many times a day I make up little poems inside my head, most of which never find the inside of my poetry book.

"But how do you know when the time is right? Not just feel it, but how do you _know_?"

"Nothing is certain, Victoria. And I'm not going to pretend it is. With your experiences, you'd call me a liar in a heartbeat if I tried. Do you want to be with him?"

"Yes."

"Does he want to be with you?"

"I'm pretty sure. Yeah."

"Don't you have your answer then? No relationship is perfect. They all have their ups and downs, no matter how great the love is. You'll disagree, you'll argue, you'll fight, but if you hang in there, if you stick it out, both of you, that's what matters."

My phone interrupts and I jump for it, hoping it's Peter calling. It's Isabella.

"Don't say anything, just listen," she says before I even say hello. "First, number one, go get dressed."

"I'm-"

"Shh! I said don't say anything. Go get dressed. Number two, come to the burger place down by the river. Bob's Burgers or Billy's Burgers, whatever."

"Billy's Bur-"

"Victoria! Don't you know how to follow directions? I swear to god. Now, number three, I'm sitting here with Edward and James, and if it isn't hard enough to be the only girl with these two, James keeps whining about how he's the third wheel, and he is, he really, really is." - I hear James in the background say, "They dragged me here!" - "Stop it, James, you are. So get down here and rescue him and me, right now. There'll be a burger waiting for you with fries, and James says 'extra, extra, extra salt.' His words, not mine. Bye. I love you."

She clicks off and I cover my eyes, shaking my head, laughing.

"Good news?" my aunt asks.

"Yeah. My friends are crazy." I take off up the stairs to get dressed. "I'm going out for dinner!" I say over my shoulder.

I fix my hair, tying it back, and squish my feet into sneakers - the pair I've written poetry on.

.

At the burger place I slide into the empty seat next to James. We're in a booth by the window overlooking the river, low white sky over green-black water. A thin layer of snow edges the bank. I can see dirt and rocks peeking through. A small aluminum fishing boat glides toward the docks. The whole scene almost looks like a black and white photograph.

I turn to Isabella, wondering if she's taken a picture of it.

She wonders why I even have to ask. Of course she has.

All around the restaurant, the wooden beams are etched with cheesy inspirational quotes, like: "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us," and "Happiness is an unexpected hug."

Edward, Isabella, and James had all applauded in an overly-enthusiastic welcome when I walked in, which might be part of the reason why it's taken me about twenty minutes to notice how different Edward's acting. He's quieter than usual, and every so often he starts zoning out or something, and Isabella will pull him down by his shoulder, whisper in his ear, and give him several kisses in a row on the cheek until he looks at her, a small smile sweeping his face. I have no doubt that if anything Isabella had told me over the phone was true, James feeling like a third wheel was it.

I scoop fries off my plate and drop them on top of his burger. "You ruined them."

He shoves one into his grinning mouth. "Just a little salt."

"He swore you like them that way," Isabella says.

Reaching across the table, I tap her hand and tell her to come to the bathroom with me.

She steps out of the stall first and as I wait while she suds up her hands, I ask her what's up with Edward.

She slips soapy hands under the water stream. "I don't know for sure. I think it's about his mom. He's been driving her car and everything." She shakes drips from her fingers and tugs at a paper towel. "Some things are hard for him to talk about. I'm just trying to be there for him, not ask too many questions. He'll tell me when he's ready."

I take my turn to wash.

"I asked my dad about your mom."

I catch her gaze through the mirror and wait for her to continue, the water running cool over my fingers.

"He said they used to date, or that he tried to date her. He was vague, but he said it didn't last long, whatever it was. He said she was wild."

I nod, still ignoring the water.

"She didn't have very many girl friends. Mostly guys. Are you going to...?" She points at my hands in the sink. "I think you forgot soap."

I soap up my hands and finish washing.

"But your mom was only fifteen and my dad was like seventeen so that was a long time ago. Way before she left."

I tear off a paper towel. It's thick and rough and barely does any drying. It accomplishes about as much as my search for my mom has accomplished. I crumple it up, a little on the violent side, and toss it in the trash before wiping my hands off on my jeans.

The wooden beam over the mirror reads: "Don't let what you can't do interfere with what you can do."

I want to groan at it and stomp my foot.

I turn to face Isabella, who's staring at me. "You seriously thought I would want that much salt on my fries? You need to get to know me better."

She tucks hair behind my ear. "He said it would make you smile."

Back at the table I scoot in next to James, and he rests his hand on my thigh. I look at him and I wonder if he's even aware of where his hand is. Well, I'm not going to point it out to him in case he decides to take it away.

As we munch, he tells us that he went with his mom to visit his dad last week. Ever since then she's finally stopped wearing her robe around the house all the time.

His eyes shine a little.

"It's weird what will change a person," I say, but James doesn't look at me. I put my hand on his leg until he does. "Did you talk to him?"

He shakes his head and his blink is slow. "Not really."

Before separating into pairs, the four of us walk out together. On the beam next to the exit as Edward pulls the door open, I read:

_I know I'm in my own little world_

_But that's okay_

_They know me here._

This makes me smile.

Isabella hugs me goodbye and takes off with Edward. I drive James home. He asks me to come inside with him.

He packs a bowl in his room, his back to me.

"You disappeared."

I don't say anything.

"Because of Peter?"

"He still hasn't called. But you know what? Who cares? Sometimes I don't even want to find my mom."

Setting the pipe down, he turns to me.

"She writes to him and has been, all along. Even though he never writes her back. She wrote me one letter. One."

James holds my arms. "Maybe it's easier for her to write to him. My dad told me he writes me letters but never sends them. Maybe it's the same for her."

I look up at him. "Maybe."

"It's not really about just finding your mom, right? It's so you can find out who your dad is. Just remember that. Eye on the prize."

Hands still on my arms, the pipe sitting ignored on his desk, he looks into my eyes. My heart speeds up because I think this is it, he's going to kiss me, and I'm not going to stop him.

He lifts a hand to my face, tucking his fingers into my hair, and then he pulls my head to his chest. And he does kiss me. He kisses my head.

I sigh into his heartbeat. This is nice, too. It feels good to be in his arms in a different way than ever before, and I think taking this slow is the way to go. We've both been hurt by each other and we really do have to be careful.

"Happiness is an unexpected hug."

I feel him laugh against me. "How does Billy's Burger Shack have the answers to all of our problems?"

I bring my hand to his chest and I hold it there while his arms are wrapped around me, and we stay like this. We don't move.

When Peter finally calls, I don't answer the phone; I'm asleep. I listen to his message in the morning as snow falls out my window. The roar of the snowplow in the street crashes through the peace and quiet that should always accompany floating flakes. Of course, as soon as I hear Peter's voice, he's all I'm aware of. Even as I'm looking out the window, the falling snow is gone.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Thank you for reading, reviewing, rec'ing and all that wonderful stuff!

I promise I know the difference between a dash and an em-dash. Fanfictiondotnet, however, will not let me prove this. It deletes my em-dashes every time I save my chapter.

**New Bella/Edward One-shot**: Lips Like Sugar. Can be found in my favorites, or here if you take the sneak-it-into-fanficdotnet "dot" out and replace it with a period, and then remove any spaces: fanfictiondotnet /s/8478268/1/Lips-Like-Sugar

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	26. Dirt

**In the Debris**

**Dirt**

**Victoria**

The message ends, his voice gone, and the snowplow's rumble returns, farther down our street now. The snow itself has turned to rain. That fast. Everything changes.

In a flannel nightgown, fuzzy slippers, and pillow-smooshed hair, Aunt Cheri comes into my room. I called to her just after listening to Peter's message. I'm in my pajamas also, and haven't even brushed my teeth. I'm prepared to tell her everything. How I know where to find my mom, how she'll lead me to my dad. But at the first mention of my plans to find my mom, she starts shaking her head.

"Why not?"

"I've been protecting you from this your whole life, Victoria. Our hearts are tender enough without family members trying to rip them to shreds. I won't let you get crushed."

"Crushed how?"

"I told your mom years ago, when she gave me that letter and that dress that unless she could commit to being a constant in your life, she needed to stay out of it. No in and out privileges."

"But this is my choice."

"And you're my responsibility. It's my job to protect you." They start as a shine in the corner of her eyes, and with a blink they roll down her cheeks.

"Auntie?"

"I know you're growing up. You're an adult now, for god's sake. But I can't let her hurt you, and she will."

"How do you know?"

"I know what it feels like. And I'm her sister. Not her daughter. You only have a taste of how it feels. Just a taste. The way you feel about your mother now, that's all it is. A taste."

She wrestles the phone from my hand. I didn't realize how hard I'd been squeezing it. In actuality, I hadn't even realized I was still holding it. She sets it on my desk and then, taking my hands, she sits us both down on my bed, hip to hip.

I ask her what my mom has done to her. She pulls all my hair off my neck and plays with it, twisting it the way I do sometimes, as she answers.

"She had money problems. You moved around a lot. Do you remember that?"

"Sort of."

She scoots just far enough away so we can face each other. "Well, she'd write to me every-so-often asking for money, said she hated asking but she had to get bills paid, she couldn't lose electricity, or another apartment. I'd send it. Of course I would. There was you to consider. She'd write back, the most grateful person ever. I was the best sister, she told me. There was no better sister. She promised visits. Promising. Always promising. She couldn't even come to our mother's funeral. I sent her the money for the trip. She couldn't even come to my wedding. I didn't bother sending her the money that time. But on the phone, or in her letters, or the occasional face to face when _I_ went to visit _her_, she was as sweet as pie. She was full of healthy smiles and hugs, and she jumped up and down when she saw me. You'll go and see her, Victoria, and she'll make you feel like the most important person on the planet, until you're out of sight. Do you remember that last visit you had with her? In the rehab? We told you it was a hospital. Do you remember that? You were seven."

It's the smiles I remember, the chipped tooth, the glistening eyes, the tight-squeezing never-let-go hugs that rocked me back and forth, that pulled me to the floor where she laughed and kissed my face and called me beautiful. Her beautiful autumn day.

I feel tears piercing at me now, just remembering it. I nod.

"Do you remember when we got home?"

I try to remember but I don't.

"You waited by the phone for six days. You ate your meals next to it. You slept wrapped up in blankets on the couch with the phone, cord stretched, to the coffee table. We tried to get you away from that phone but you would scream. She never called like she promised she would. Do you remember?"

I shake my head, and I know that tears on my face are falling as fast as my aunt's. She wipes mine, not hers.

"I tried to call her, but she wouldn't accept them. One night, while you slept, I came to take the phone away. You had left that book open that you used to draw in. I saw that poem you wrote about the mother who ate her baby. You named the baby Autumn. You wrote that the baby was happier inside her mommy's tummy. I knew the baby was you and the mother was Char. A seven year old thinking that way, that it was better never to have been born. Nothing in my entire life has broken my heart the way that poem did."

"I remember that poem. I still have it. I just didn't remember why I wrote it."

"That was when I knew you were a poet. I recognized you had a future, sweetheart, and it could be a future chasing your mother, or a future that could build you into someone wonderful. Who you are now." She smiles through tears and draws the backs of her fingers down my face. She lifts my chin. "You've become the beautiful woman I knew you could be."

.

Today's rain has washed most of the snow away in our neighborhood. There are little patches of it that survived, here and there, all of them dirty-brown. The air's scent is as fresh as the wind is cold. My aunt's garden flowers are all dormant or dead. They won't be back to life for a couple more months. A green vine chases itself, the way a dog might chase his tail, in spirals over the trellis. You can't get anywhere out here without walking the stone path under this trellis. It's my aunt's favorite part of our yard.

James finds me out back, sitting on the wooden swing my uncle sanded and hung from a tree when I was little. I'm here, pushing myself back and forth with my toes, thinking about what Peter said, what my aunt said, and what it all means for me.

"Mud said you were out here."

He's got his hood up, which means nothing now, other than that he's trying to keep warm. I drop my hood. I smile. "Hi."

"Your aunt's not home? It's just you and him?" He looks to the right, toward the kitchen window. I'm sure I spot a glare in his eyes.

"She's at work. He's inside. It's just me out here. And you."

James squats down, takes hold of the ropes with each hand, and steadies the swing. "Time to tell me what Peter said."

I tell him that the reason Peter took so long getting back to me is that he was trying to track Maggie down. He found her address on the back of an envelope, but not her last name. He also gave me the name and location of the retreat my mom had mentioned to him, where she likely still is. In the Sonoma hills. Wine country.

"Where's Maggie?"

"A small town outside of Mendocino."

He asks me what I want to do, and I tell him I want it to be just me and him, my aunt can't know.

"Me and you what?"

"Driving," I say, short, as if he should already know. "Driving to Sonoma."

"Why don't you want your aunt to know?"

I give James a condensed version of what my aunt talked to me about.

"She thinks my dad's a low-life, too. She thinks he'll do nothing but hurt me. I want to be able to come home and be like: 'Look, Aunt Cheri, you were mistaken, he's really this great guy.' But if I can't do that, then I want to be able to come home without her ever knowing anything different. Without her knowing that I'm, well, whatever I'll be feeling."

Fingers on my face, eyes inline with mine. "What will you feel? If this doesn't..."

"I don't know. I know this is like playing with fire, James. I'm not stupid. So maybe I'll feel, like... burned."

He nods, his face dropping a little, his hand still against my cheek. His fingers caress. "Hey, I'm here." His fingers brush a little firmer. "If you want to stop or keep going, I'll be what you need. And if it comes to that, I'll be your burn cream." He lifts his closed lips in a weak smile.

His comment about being my burn cream makes me laugh which turns his smile real.

My arms wrap around his neck and his wrap my waist. I'm barely even on the swing anymore. "I hope we find what you're looking for."

I'm compelled to tell him I love him. But I don't know if either of us are ready to get into it again. And what if... what if he acts like he did before? Like the time isn't right. But I have to say something. And maybe he'll catch on. Maybe he'll understand me.

"There's a boy and girl who fell in love in the eye of a tornado."

His hand moves over my back. "What happens to them?"

"I don't know yet." I cling tight. He clings tighter. He understands. He's giving it back.

.

When my next work day is over I tell Mr. Alistair I need some time off. James and I decided we're going to use the school ski trip in a couple of weeks as our excuse to get away. "I'm going to California."

He asks me what's in California.

"My mom," I say. "Peter gave me an address."

"Just a minute. Just hold on a minute." He goes into the back, I suppose to his office, and returns unfolding a map. "Do you have the address with you?"

He pulls a highlighter out of his back pocket as I bring up the address on my phone. I show it to him and he looks over the map, his nose leading the way.

"Here," he says. "This is the best route." He's highlighting lines on the map. "This is what you have to do." He folds the map up and hands it over to me. "Don't think I'm some old fogie who doesn't keep up with the times. I know all about the GPS. Unreliable."

I slide the map into my bag.

"You come back, you hear? Don't disappear the way your mom did."

"Never," I say. "I'm not her."

"Well you just - you never say never. But for now." He nods at me.

I'm staring at him - we're staring at each other - when it occurs to me slowly, the way a floating leaf might land in my lap, who this man, this baker, this pastry shop owner, my boss, could be. I can let the leaf sit there in my lap or I can pick it up. "Did you know I don't know who my dad is?"

And now it's like there are several leaves falling all around me, covering me up. They know I want to hide. But I don't hide. I watch him closely.

"I don't believe you've ever mentioned your-" His eyes widen for a split second. If I hadn't been searching his face, I'd have missed it. "Are you implying-"

"I don't know what I'm implying. But I know, I mean, I think it might not be so bad if - No, we'll just wait and see. I'm going to find out."

He gives me a single nod, and it takes him awhile to turn away from me. When he does he looks out at the shop.

"Would you look at that," he says, eyes narrowing. "Somebody tracked mud in here. It's still wet. Such a danger."

"I'll mop it up before I go."

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

My father's staying true to his word. It's been a week since I last found cash on the kitchen counter. The first few days I checked out of habit, but I've come to the point where I don't even look for it anymore. My wallet is only a few twenties short of being empty.

Max is happy that I'm back in the house. He comes into my room every night before he goes to bed. He could've done this even when I lived out in the pool house, but maybe he didn't know that. There must've been something in him making him think that as I was isolating myself from my father and Esme, I was also isolating myself from him. I should've made sure he knew that wasn't the case. Some things that you think never have to be said, just do.

I haven't told Isabella about what went down with my father. How do you tell the person you love that she's part of some fucked up experiment, an experiment your father expects you to fail? My father has already slapped her in the face with our money. And now I'm supposed to do it, too? I can already see the look on her face: the tilted head, the pursed lips, hurt eyes, and then the back of her. Walking away.

She wants the money not to matter. I want the money not to matter. And it doesn't. But my father, he's making it matter; he's giving it the power to run us down. It's in my mind now more than ever before. And I don't even have it. So how do I tell her without hurting her feelings? And if I do tell her, how can I be sure that she won't walk away?

I've been feeling a lot like I did back before I told her I loved her, except for now, instead of feeling like she's just out of reach, it's like she's barely in my grasp.

Even when she's smiling, kissing me, even when she's holding on to my arm like she never wants to let go, I can feel how slippery she is. I haven't tied her to me; nobody can tie a person to him. But she's tied herself to me, and she can just as easily untie herself.

And what will I be left with? A string with nothing at the end of it.

I've been running like mad every day just to blow off steam. At school, on the field, I run so hard Coach Stevens pulls me aside in the locker room after gym to tell me they can use someone like me on the track team.

Newton comes up next to us laughing. I know he's on the team, considered the fastest.

"You could blow Newton outta the water," Coach says, shutting Newton up.

I tell both of them I don't think so.

"I wasn't running my hardest out there," Newton says.

"Don't matter. I've clocked you plenty." Coach adjusts the cap on his balding head, looking years younger when the hat's back in place. "That's too fast an answer," he says to me. "Never make such a fast decision. It's dumb. And I haven't asked you yet. You just think about it. I'll ask you on Monday. Then you'll give me your answer."

.

Throughout English Newton's glare on me is hard to miss, and in the hallways, too. Sick of it, I throw a smile at him and flip him off.

After school I head toward the gym to meet Isabella.

I don't see her in the crowd yet. They're all headed toward the parking lot, except for Newton. He's coming straight at me.

"Hey, Cullen, you gonna run, or what?"

"I might," I say to mess with him.

He stops in front of me, crossing his arms over his chest. "I've been training four years for this. I hold the record."

"Cool."

"One hard run in gym doesn't change that."

"No." I glance over his head out toward the woods. "But one hard run at a meet will."

I see him clamp his teeth down, his eyes going slitty. He's pissed. It makes me laugh.

"You're still with Isabella, huh?"

"What's it to you?" I work hard at keeping aloof. I won't let him think he's getting to me.

"Kinda long for you and one chick, isn't it?" The attitude he's giving me has me noticing how much shorter he is than I am.

"You know me?"

"Just surprised you're not bored of her yet is all."

I shake my head, eyes threatening him to stop.

"Must be some lay."

I get in his face. "I'm _not_ doing this with you." I back up an inch. "All right?"

I walk away from him, opposite the gym. Isabella will just have to find me. I'm already starting to rage. Mike's better off letting me go.

But the asshole's following me.

"It's her neck, isn't it? Pay a little attention to it and it makes everything easy, doesn't it?"

My eyes bore holes into the ground. Craters. My jaw clenches. _One more word, Newton. One more._

"She still bite her lip 'til it bleeds when she comes?"

I turn and throw my fist. It lands at the side of his head. I don't even feel it. "Is this what you want?"

He pushes me off, and I come at him again. My thoughts rage from my mouth, spit following. "Don't talk about Isabella. Don't ever fucking talk about her!" I lunge for him and he dodges. Nothing's stopping me until I land another punch.

"Edward! Stop!" Except that. I turn at the sound of Isabella's voice. Newton clocks me in the jaw.

"Stop it! Both of you!"

I slam my fist into Mike's gut before I feel any pain in my face. He topples over with a grunt. I give him a shove and he's on the ground.

Isabella tugs at my arm. Newton, still fetal, holding his gut, lifts his head.

"I better not even hear a _rumor_ that you said anything about her. Hear that?" I'm pissed because he's not answering. I bend over him. "Hear it?" I'm amped, ready to go after him again. "Answer me, you fuck!"

Isabella links fingers with mine, leading me away. I turn over my shoulder. "And I'm fucking running!" I notice the blurred crowd that has gathered as Isabella tugs on me.

I'm looking straight ahead now. If I turn back, Newton's done. We don't go to the parking lot, we head toward the forest. When I bring her hand to my lips, she yanks away.

"What were you doing fighting with Mike?"

She's mad at me? Me? I get mad back.

"You and that asshole?" My head's down and I'm stomping ahead of her like some twelve year old. I'm younger than Max right now.

"What? No!"

"Wait…" I press fingers to my temple as I turn to face her. As if our height difference isn't enough, we're on a slant and the sight of her looking so tiny calms me to the point that I know I have to try to get a better hold of myself. It's hard once you're pumped up like this, an unfinished fight just footsteps behind you. I don't want to scare her, though. "You're telling me nothing went on with you and him?"

"I mean, not after you, Edward. I didn't know you then. This is about that?"

My hand falls to my side and I stare into her eyes. "No." I sigh. "You with him, though." I turn around in a circle, confused, trying to keep my footing. This is dizzying. One day I think they slept together, then I think it was nothing but rumors, and now I know it was definitely more than nothing. I'm still shaken up by adrenaline, anger pumping through my veins. "Fuck! The way he talked about you." I have to punch something, my fist rising in the air. There's nothing but trees, which would hurt me worse than I'd hurt them, or plants that would just give. There wouldn't be enough friction for my fist.

Isabella pulls on my elbow. "Sit down."

I plop on the ground beside her, giving up my search for something to punch. My arms land heavily on my raised knees.

The scent of the wet earth is as apparent as the wetness creeping up my pants. "Fucking wet ground all the time," I say, although it has nothing do with anything. I take my coat off and put it under both of us.

"What did he say that got to you so bad?" She's rubbing my arm over my shirt and if that's meant to calm me, it isn't working.

"Forget about it." I turn toward her, and she's looking back at me with an expression I can't read.

There's still a lot about Isabella that I don't know, and I've given up my life as I know it for her. For the first time, I really think about what this means. What if she isn't in this the way I am?

I have no right to be angry with her for what I've given up, though. That's nowhere near her fault. I do have to know how far in she is before I get myself in any deeper.

"What was it with you and him? You were still a virgin with me. That can't be faked."

"What did he tell you?"

"I'm not saying it. It's not worth knowing. I'll tell you this, he said enough. How far did it go?"

"Is this something we need to talk about?"

"I know too much already. You have to tell me." It sounds like begging, and it is. I'm begging her to tell me.

She shows me fingers.

"That's it? Nothing else? No… tongue or anything?"

"In my mouth?"

"You know not your mouth."

An image flashes through my mind of my mouth between her legs, and to think Mike's could have been there - I dig my fists into the ground.

"Just fingers."

Okay, that's better. That's the right start.

"And did you, you know, return the favor?"

"Edward!"

"What about the neck thing?" I push hair over her shoulder and rub my thumb along her neck under the collar of her jacket.

"What neck thing?"

"How you like when I talk on your neck. Did he do that to you?"

"Edward, what?"

"Did he?"

She shakes her head.

I look down at the ground, arms on my knees.

"That night in your room, after my mom's accident. On your bed?"

"Yeah?" I look over at her.

"Your face was. Your lips were…" She touches her neck. "Right here. Your breath. And when you talked." She closes her eyes. Her chest rises. "I know. My mom was in the hospital, and there I was being turned on by you. On accident. It's awful."

"No, it isn't."

"But that was when I knew I liked when you talked on my neck. Nobody else-"

"And with Jasper it was just-"

"Edward,_ don't_. Nothing more than kissing with him. It didn't feel right. Because he's your friend."

I frown. "But, back then-"

"Back then, I sort of liked you already. That day under the bridge, the first time you came over. I liked you."

I look at her lips remembering that first day at her house, how I wanted to touch her bottom lip just to feel it. And now I can touch it anytime I want.

She's pulling at the tiny trees growing around her.

"Was there anyone else? From school?"

"Why are you asking me about this? What about _your_ past?"

"You don't know any of them. It's different when you know the people."

"I know Jessica and she said-"

"Lies."

"Okay…" She brings her hand to my arm. "There have only been three guys I messed around with here, including you. Mike was before I met you and Jasper was hardly anything because of you. And, really, I wish you didn't know about Mike as it is, or even Jasper."

I can live with that. That's better than I thought.

"What about you? Anyone since we met?"

"Nobody but you."

"All these months?"

"All these months, and more. Nobody else since my mom passed away." I nod. "Just me and my hand." I smile, trying to lighten things up. Then, with my next thought I remember Victoria. "Wait. There was almost Victoria. I forgot."

"_Victoria?_ Edward..." Her face falls to a place I don't ever want to see on her and my stomach does that thing where it plummets. She can do this to me with nothing but a look. I bring my hand to her cheek.

"No. It didn't happen. Nothing but - just like you and Jasper. Okay? And I accidentally said your name anyway."

"You said my name?" She covers her eyes. "Oh god, poor Victoria. No wonder! I would've hated me, too."

"And there was nothing with you and James?"

"No. James was never interested in me like that."

"Victoria thought he was. We sat together watching the two of you at my party."

"Watching us do what?"

"Tease each other, I guess."

She elbows me. "You and Victoria are creepy together."

"We - we cared about people who didn't seem to feel the same way about us."

"Well, James never even tried anything with me."

"If he had?"

"I told you. I wanted you." She scratches her nails at the back of my neck. I lower my head, liking the feeling. "If I give you one more thing can we drop all of this?"

I give her a lazy nod, her fingers still raking my neck.

"I didn't reciprocate with Mike." She kisses me next to my ear. "Are you hurt?" She lifts her hand to my jaw, reminding me of the pain, the dull throbbing that really hasn't let up.

"Not by Newton."

"By me?"

I shake my head. "It's just. I am so deep in this thing - in you - and if you're not as deep-"

"What makes you think I'm not as deep? Just because of Mike? Or Jasper? Or this made up thing with James?"

"I'm not doubting you. It's... if you're not as deep as me, I need to know, because I'm all about you. _All_."

"I'm deep, Edward. Doesn't everything I've just said show you how deep I am? And the way you're talking now is scaring me."

I bring my arm around her and kiss her cheek. "I didn't mean to scare you. What's scary?"

"It's like you don't trust me or my feelings, and I don't understand why."

"No, it's... There's stuff messing with my mind that isn't your fault. I trust you." I push hair behind her ear because I want to see her face better, and I think touching her while I say this will help her believe it. "This thing with Newton. What he said, it blindsided me. I'm barely thinking clearly. Ignore me. Ignore everything I've said."

"Ignore that you're in deep?" I hear the smile in her voice.

"Except that. Remember that part." I push my leg against hers, and then she pushes back.

"Love can be terrifying sometimes," she says.

"Tell me about it."

She stands and holds her hand out for mine. "Come on. Let's get some ice on that jaw, you brute."

We walk, Isabella's arms around my middle, my arm over her shoulder. I kiss the top of her head. I have to.

.

My car is running on empty. When I stop for gas, I try one of my cards just for the hell of it. It goes through. I try another one and then another one, and they go through, too.

This doesn't make sense to me. There's no way in hell my father's forgotten. Maybe it's that they're in my name and there's nothing he can do about it. If this is the case, it must be driving him crazy. Feeling powerless will do that to a person like him. Still, it's only a matter of time before he demands that I transfer everything left in my accounts to his. This won't last forever. I start thinking about a job.

* * *

><p>AN: Hello and thank you for reading!

I'm loving all the different views on Carlisle from last chapter. They're all perfect. He isn't just one thing, and it was amazing to see what you all think of him.

I'll be posting a new short story soon, a novella. It's E/B, and if I can just give it a name, I can start posting it!

Thank you, as always, to myimm0rtal for her beta skills, and my writing girls, the DTCPS, for their amazing support, motivation, and inspiration!


	27. Smoke

**In the Debris**

**Smoke**

**Edward**

She's looking out the window, but the lights are too bright inside the fishery to see the river. Our plates have been cleared.

I'm contemplating telling her everything. I pull her attention to me.

"Hey, Isabella."

"Bella," she says.

I lean across to touch her hair. "My Bella."

_I'm telling her,_ I think. I'm telling her. But as I start talking, I find myself explaining what went on with Coach Stevens earlier, why Newton was so pissed.

"I'm thinking of doing it just to beat Newton's record. I could beat it."

"You should do it. You love running. You're fast. They need you. You might like it."

"Maybe."

She smiles, and I shove it all back, my father, his experiment, all of it. I let it go because all that matters is right here. This smile. And I will not be the one to make it disappear.

The server brings my card back, speaking low. "Do you have another card?"

"What? It's only forty dollars."

"I swiped it twice. Do you have another one?"

I'm starting to sweat in the realization that my father emptied my accounts. I should've known he could pull this off. The second I thought of him as powerless, I should've suspected. I should've been ready. Powerless is not a part of his vocabulary. If I were to ask him what powerless meant to him, he'd ask me to please repeat that in English. A few phone calls, maybe some paperwork filled out was probably all it took. Maybe the easy forging of my signature, if it had even come to that. Possibly it didn't. Not for Dr. Carlisle Cullen.

Isabella hands over a card. I put my hand out. I cover it up. "No."

"It's okay. I want to."

I sit back. Already defeated. I have to let her, because I have nothing.

"It happens," she says.

"Not to me."

"It's probably just a problem with your bank."

I know what the problem is. There's no account any longer. I clench my jaw. I have to tell Isabella that I'm penniless. She's going to figure it out on her own soon enough.

"My dad emptied my accounts." All my accounts are empty. I know without even checking.

"Okay." She's frowning but she doesn't ask questions.

"I have no money," I say, and I probably shouldn't have.

"It's okay. Neither do I." She smiles.

I'm quiet as I drive her home, only she doesn't want me to be. She keeps trying to get me to talk. My knuckles are white around the steering wheel. There's not even a sliver of anything inside of me that wants to talk.

"What's wrong? So I paid, big deal."

I look at her.

"I'm allowed to pay sometimes."

We roll along, street after street, house after house. Street lights coming and going. I get stuck behind a logging truck that only prolongs the ride.

When I finally pull up to her house, I leave the engine idling and we sit.

"Are you really this mad because I paid?"

"Not because you paid. Because you _had_ to pay."

"I don't care."

"I do. That doesn't happen to me."

"Oh, I forgot. You're untouchable."

I shake my head. She doesn't and wouldn't understand.

"Get over your ego."

Avoiding her eyes, I reach across and open the car door. I don't move to get out with her.

"Is this you dismissing me?"

"Gotta get my ego home."

"Edward…"

I wait for her to get out but she doesn't, so we're just sitting here.

"Walk me up or take me to your house."

"I live in the main house now."

"Why? What's going on at home?"

_Do I tell her?_ I glance at her. _Do I?_

"My dad…" I eye my leg, my hand rubbing it.

"Something happened between you?"

I pull my wallet out of my back pocket, open it and show her that it's empty. This, for me, is like showing someone the worst part of my soul. I'm naked and beaten in front of her. I pull the three cards out that I know are worthless and toss them at her. They're just pieces of plastic. "I have nothing."

She picks the cards up off her lap and narrows her eyes at me. "Why are you acting like it's my fault? I'm sorry you have nothing, and I'm sorry that I don't really care. You're acting like a spoiled brat."

She throws the cards back at me and leaves, grabbing her bag from the back, slamming the door and heading to her house.

I drive off. I get to the first stop sign before I come out of whatever fog I've been in since my card was rejected. It all plays over in my mind, the way I opened the car door for her like that. _What the hell am I doing?_ I swing the car around and speed back to her house, park it on the wrong side of the street and run up to her door.

I knock, and when she doesn't answer I ring the doorbell. I might have kept ringing the doorbell like an insane person if she didn't open it.

"What?" She looks past me.

"I'm sorry." Over her shoulder her dad's standing back a few feet with a frown on his face. "Come out here?"

All she does is stand there not looking at me, her arms folding across her chest. She's blocking me in every way, and I deserve it.

"Come out. Please."

She steps out, closing the door behind her. It's possible the frost in her breath is caused by more than just the cold air. She stares at me, waiting for some kind of explanation but I have nothing. At least she's looking at me now, though. We just stare at each other until she starts to turn around to go back inside.

I touch her hand. She yanks away even though I barely have a fingertip on her.

"I messed up."

"What's going on with you?"

"I know I look like some spoiled rich kid to you, but... When I showed you my empty wallet," I face the ground, "that was humiliating for me."

"Humiliating or humbling?"

_"Humiliating_, Bella. I'm humiliated. I know you think I sound like a brat, but I didn't - I should've known."

"Why should you have known? What happened?"

"Do you want to come over? Come with me."

She shakes her head. "_You're_ humiliated? By your dad or whatever? You threw your cards at me!" She blinks a few times and I see tears shining behind each blink. "Do you know what that made me feel like? I felt like a-"

"Shh." I put a finger over her mouth. "Don't say it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry about that. I didn't mean it like that. I was pissed at my dad. I didn't mean it."

I reach for her, under her coat, pulling at her waist to bring her in close. She lets me, but her arms don't reach around me. They stay between us. I apologize again into her hair. "Come home with me? I'll show you my room. My real room."

"You'll just have to bring me back here later."

"Spend the night."

She pulls out of my arms, her hand just resting on my stomach. "I can't. My dad just saw you. What am I supposed to tell him?"

"Then I'll bring you home later. I don't care. Just come?"

She looks up at me, no hint of a smile. "Are you going to be in this mood?"

"N-no."

Charlie opens the door, poking his head out to ask if everything's all right.

"I'm going to Edward's," she says almost whispering. "Be back by midnight."

I avoid Charlie, but I can feel him looking at me. I really don't want to see what's in his eyes right now. He knows something's going on.

Isabella's heading down the walkway and I start to follow.

"Edward," Charlie says, and I turn back, eyes on his shoulder. "I'll be waiting up."

I nod.

"She's not the kind of girl you want to hurt. Hear? Not only because she's my daughter - reason enough - but because of who she is."

I meet his eyes, and they don't look hard, they look concerned. "I know."

He backs into the house and I go to Isabella, who's now waiting in my car.

I force myself out of my mood. What my father did is out of my hands. I have to let it go.

But my mind won't rest. I can't just force myself out of a mood. It doesn't work that way. Before I get to my house, I pull over into the brush on the hill and slam a hand through my hair. "What are you doing with me?" I don't know why in the world I'd want to try to talk her out of being with me, except that I'm not enough for her. Something's whacked in me. I'm not put together right.

"What do you mean? You asked me to come."

"No, I don't mean right now. I mean at all. You know what an asshole I am. Any rumors you've heard about me, they're probably all true. How I used to sleep with girls, just to get off. No other reason. No feelings. Nothing like that."

She's silent and maybe she's thinking about it, maybe she's thinking about looking for something better.

"Are you sleeping around now?"

"No," I say fast. "No way. But I used to - you know, Jasper and... we used to bring liquor along just to - to loosen things up even more. If my mom knew that." I'm shaking my head. "_Fuck._" I start to reach for the back of my neck, but Isabella takes my hand.

"Edward. Stop. Look at me." She's facing me and leans closer. "What's going on with you? Are you trying to, like, get rid of me or something?" She lets go of my hand.

"The other way around. You should-" I can't say it. Maybe I'm too selfish to say it, but I can't tell her to get rid of me. "You don't know."

"You don't have to do this. You don't have to start listing all the things you've done. If we all did that, everyone's list would be pretty long."

"Not yours."

"You know what I did? As long as we're confessing. Remember Mike's After New Year's party?"

I nod, frowning a little. We didn't go to that.

"I brought it up and kind of pushed for it because-" she breaks off and looks out the windshield for a second "-because Jessica said something to me that day at school, about you. About you and her."

"Me and Jessica?"

"Yeah, and I didn't know about it. You two. I was kind of like, I don't know, jealous or shocked or whatever, so I brought up going to Mike's because he's one of the only guys I'd ever even fooled around with here. It was stupid, getting back at you for something that didn't even matter."

"Nothing ever went on with me and Jessica. Ever. I told you that."

"I know that now, but I didn't know then. But anyway, the point is, everyone does stupid things. And the rumors about you, and the things you're telling me now, I hear all that, and I look at you, the person I know, and I can't mesh the two sides together. I can't see you being that way."

I kind of scoff through my nose because what she's confessed about Newton is nothing compared to what I've done. "You saw some of it tonight, didn't you? The way I treated you."

She nods. "You can't do that."

I lower my face to hers, my forehead against hers. "I know." And I do know. I know what she's saying and what Charlie said. I'd know even if neither of them said anything.

Her fingers rake down the side of my face and she moves to kiss me. "Let's just try to forget it happened." She kisses me again, and I wrap an arm around her waist pulling her closer, probably jamming her hip into the emergency brake.

"Bella?"

"Mm-hmm?"

I take her face in both of my hands, holding firm, catching her eyes. My words are almost nothing more than breath. "I need you like nothing else." I kiss her. "Like air."

Holding my wrist, she turns her face to kiss my hand. "You're all over the place tonight." She brings the kiss back to my mouth, kissing hard, and god I love when she takes control. I give, letting her lean against me, my back against the door. My hand rushes down her shoulder, across her breast, down her stomach and in between her legs, where I press.

"Edward, wait, wait, wait."

"Not in the car?"

"No, I mean, I can't. My-" her voice softens to a whisper "-period."

"Again?"

She shakes me with her laugh. "You know it's a once a month thing and not a once in a lifetime thing, right?"

We both sit up, Isabella moving back to her own seat.

I wonder how much she really cares about having sex on her period. Because I don't. Not with her. I press my wrist against my crotch to adjust.

"Take me to your house. Show me your room."

.

She looks around a lot like she did the first time at the pool house, only it doesn't take as long. Her hand drifts along the dresser until she reaches a frame and she picks it up.

"Max and your mom?"

"No." I move behind her. "That's not Max."

She takes a closer look. "You?"

I nod.

"Wow. So much like Max. Good genes," she says. "All of you. You were so cute. And your mom's beautiful."

When she replaces the frame, she goes to the sliding doors and looks out. "Is this why you haven't been bringing me over lately, whatever's going on here?"

I shrug even though she can't see me.

"I like your room." She sighs. "The balcony's nice."

"I like watching you." My hand slides down her back, and I bring her into my chest for a kiss. Her hands come to my shoulders and mine are finding their way under the edge of her shirt, and as our kisses grow hotter, she drags her mouth down my throat and torso, bending down to her knees, starting to unbutton my pants, my fingers tangling in her hair.

There's a knock on the door and I pull her up to her feet fast, just before Max barges in.

"When did you get home?" I ask, breathing too hard.

"Now. Josh's mom just dropped me off. How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Get famous at school."

"We've had this conversation before." I don't mean for it to come out as annoyed as it does.

"You never told me how. You gave me a bunch of bullshit."

My eyebrows rise, possibly all the way into my hairline.

"Like, how do you get pretty girls to come home with you?" He gestures to Isabella, which makes her smile, and then he plops himself down on my bed. "We have a group project and nobody wants to be in our group. Why can't teachers just assign groups? Why do we have to find our own?"

"I hate group projects, too," Isabella says, pulling all of her hair over to one shoulder. She's beautiful when she does this, and the line of her neck is right there. I kiss it, even in front of Max.

"You do?" Max sits up.

"Uh-huh. I always wait for someone to invite me into a group and then if I don't get invited-"

"You get stuck with someone. Like our group is stuck with us."

"Your group is lucky to have you. Even if they don't know it." She gets a small smile out of him.

"Most people don't really like me," I say. "They pretend to because of our family but it makes most of them happy to see me miserable. You don't want friends like that."

"Everyone hates me because of our money. They don't even pretend."

"You know what helps?" Isabella says. "Not caring so much what people think. They're just people. Like you, me, and your brother."

He squints at her, skeptical. "I shouldn't complain about this, anyway. I heard Josh's mom say…" He stops mid-sentence.

"What?" I ask.

"Well, we were talking about how nobody likes me because of money and she said-" He stops again, and I recognize the hurt in his face, the turned down lips, the pulled together brows.

"What did she say?" I narrow my eyes.

"I heard her tell Josh's dad that we don't know what it's like to have real problems and we should just be thankful for what we have because it's way more than most people have."

"That's bullshit! I hate that shit."

"Edward." Isabella puts a hand on my shoulder.

"No." I back up. "Buddy, people have said that shit to me my whole life. Maybe our problems are different, maybe they're not, but money does not keep you pain-fucking-free. Next time you hear anyone say something like that, you tell them to shut the hell up. You may not know what it's like to walk in their shoes, but they don't know what it's like to walk in yours, either. Josh has both his parents, doesn't he? We'd give up everything just to have our mother back, wouldn't we, bro?"

He's nodding and crying, and I think I might have made things worse. I sit beside him and put my arm around him, and try to change the subject. "Why did you ask about pretty girls? You like someone?"

He swipes at his eyes, and the smile he can't ever hide is on its way.

"Who is she?" I squeeze his shoulder.

"No one."

"Who is she?"

"She doesn't like me." He's looking down, talking into his lap. "I'll never get her."

"You'll get her."

"Cullens," Isabella says. "Girls are not prizes to be got." Then she looks at Max, "But you _will_ get her."

We all laugh.

Max comes with us when I take Isabella home. It's late, but I don't want to leave him alone. He falls asleep in the backseat.

I check on him in the rearview mirror before I promise Isabella that I'll be getting a job.

"Don't think I plan on sulking over this anymore. Tonight, what happened, that was mostly shock. I let myself get blindsided. I knew he would take my money, but I thought he would have me give it to him, not just make it disappear."

"What you said to Max earlier, about how people don't give your feelings credit because you're rich, did that have anything to do with-"

"No. I was an asshole. I deserved to have my head bashed in by you. Or your dad. Seriously. You should've kicked my ass. I think your dad wanted to."

I take her hand. She links our fingers, and it's a gesture that tells me as much as any words can. Things are okay between us.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

How many times a day do we really think about things before we do them, or think about why we do them? Probably not many, if at all. You walk to a window to look out at the view, green hills, trees that follow a river, leading to a lake. You don't think about why, you just do it. That's how it is when I pull the box down from the top of my closet and take out the dress and the letter, before sliding out my mother's picture from the photo album—the picture with my poem written on the back—and pack them all as if they're worth millions and made of glass, one by one, in a backpack.

If I have to give a reason for this, it's probably because these are the few reminders I have of her. But I'm not thinking this when I pack them. I just do it.

In the backpack I place the picture on top of the letter on top of the dress, and on top of all of it I fit a rolled up quilt from my childhood—one that came with me from Arizona. I slip a metal water bottle into the side pocket, and my poetry book from James, some chapstick, and tissues in the front pocket.

When my aunt asks if we need a ride to school where the bus is supposedly meeting us, I tell her no, which isn't a lie. We don't need a ride to the school. But that doesn't matter because where I've told her we're going, that's the biggest lie I've ever fed her.

I hug and kiss her goodbye and James carries my suitcase out and puts it in the trunk.

My backpack's on the floor by my feet, the map that Mr. Alistair gave me poking out from one of the pockets.

Other than "hi," James and I haven't said anything to each other. James plays with the music, I close my eyes. I try to dream of things that aren't happening now. I put myself in the past, in a simpler time when my aunt and uncle were enough.

I think about family dinners and nights out at the lodge. I think about how it had almost become a ritual back then for my aunt to say, "Your uncle bought his share of the lodge with nothing but a loan, a hope, and a prayer," every time we went to dinner. She always said it with a look on her face like she was proud.

"I know, Auntie," I would say.

"It just proves that you can do whatever you want. Whatever you put your mind to."

"I know," I'd say again.

I remember the day I noticed that when my uncle's smile faded, the lines they made remained. I thought he must have done a lot of smiling in his life to have the smile marks stay after the smile went away. I shiver now with that thought and come back to the present.

.

The day has faded away by the time we slip from Washington into Oregon. The headlights go on. The evening goes on, the sky darkening to navy.

I decide times like these will be the best parts of our drive—the more remote places, the road seeming to go on, up and down, slight curves, for eternity. James and me.

I look to the front and see nothing but night and sometimes a hill we're climbing. I look right and left and it's all trees. If another car happens upon us it's an intrusion. It doesn't belong, and the universe seems to know this as the car is soon gone, either speeding by or exiting the highway.

"We should do this, James. Travel. After graduation. Just pack up. Everything we need will be packed into your little car, and we'll just drive. See where we end up. You me and the open road. What do ya say?"

"Be homeless?"

"Not homeless. Just... drifting. And not always, just for a little while, you know? Just get away. Get the hell away."

I'm staring straight ahead at the road that seems to never end. We could do this. I feel James glance at me a few times.

"You're serious."

"Hell yes, I'm serious. Think of all the poems I could get out of it."

"But then, what'll we do for money? Seriously. I don't think it's as easy to find day to day jobs in real life as it is in the movies."

My sigh does not hide my exasperation. "You don't dream. No imagination." I tilt my head back, looking at the roof of the car. That seems about as far as his dreaming gets him.

Who wants a dream to be so close you can reach up and touch it? A dream should be something so far away you might get lost getting to it, you might almost drown, but when you finally get there, and you take that breath, and you look back, you'll think all the hard work was worth it, everything, to get yourself here in this place, right now.

"I dream of this." He takes my hand, lacing our fingers. I sit straight up and ignore the roof of the car and the infinite road and anything else but James' hand in mine, heating me like an oven. James is all there is.

We've never held hands like this before, not in all our years of friendship.

He lets go.

"But eventually all the shit in life forces your feet back on the ground."

.

Hungry, starving really, and nothing sounds good. We've driven through the same long street of the same small town back and forth about five times, and nothing James has suggested sounds good.

"Crab shack?" he tries again, his voice like gravel, tired.

"No."

"I thought you were hungry."

"I am."

"Victoria, let's go into the next place we see, look at a menu and decide on something. We're going to run out of gas just looking for a place."

We pass through a light, entering another strip of restaurants and shops.

"Pasta?" he asks.

"Nope."

"Sandwiches? Or you could just get soup and salad if nothing else looks good."

I shake my head. "I don't want soup and salad."

He lets out a frustrated grunt, speeds the car up and pulls into the next parking lot. We land in front of a Thai restaurant, where he gets out. "Coming in or not?"

"Not."

He falls back into the car, slams the door shut and shoves his head into his hands. "Okay, what's going on? Are you nervous or something? About finding your mom?"

"I'm nervous about something you said."

"About what?"

"Maybe it's time to try this." I reach across to pick up his hand and lace our fingers.

He turns his head toward me, his blue eyes burning so strong they're melting mine. "Don't say it unless you mean it."

"I mean it."

His lips part, but it takes him a moment to speak. "Victoria?"

"I'm serious."

He squeezes my fingers as his other hand lifts to my face. He still looks confused, blinking a few times like he's trying to figure out if he's awake or not. "You're serious and you're-" His hand slides into my hair, curving around my head "-sure?"

"Yes."

He moves in. Closer. His breath on my cheek, my eyes close. His lips breeze along my cheekbone into my hairline, where they still. He kisses me like I'm breakable, his lips sweeping to my forehead and across, down my nose, and then, nose to nose, eye to eye, he tilts and meets my lips. So soft.

I feel his first kiss, his first welcomed kiss in front of a Thai restaurant we seemed to search forever for and don't intend to eat at in a tiny town I can't even name, and that's poetry.

"Victoria, Victoria, Victoria." His mouth not an inch from mine, I feel the shape of my name on my lips three times. And that's poetry.

He kisses me some more, his tongue meeting mine again and again, the windows fogging to white, as thick and coated as the sky in Forks. His hand on my face, holding me so close, not about to release me, mine on his shoulder and our other hands both still twined together, we're kissing so fast, so deep, our lips matching together and then unmatching, and it doesn't even matter. We're like the river in Forks that goes and goes and goes, that laps at the shore, that pulls everything that dares to float in it in its own direction. We barely take a second to catch our breath. Who needs breath in this river? All we need to do is let it carry us.

This kiss, these kisses, don't ever have to end as far as I'm concerned. They can satiate our hunger or starve us until we die, no need for food. And we don't stop, the stars in the sky witnessing us through nighttime clouds and foggy windows.

The moon is smiling down at us. I can feel it on my skin, seeping inside me. It's warm. It's James.

When he pulls away, he says, "I can finally breathe." And he is breathing. He's breathing hard. I lean toward him again, squishing my fingers into his, reaching my other hand to his face. I want his lips back. His tongue. His touch.

He gives me the kisses my lips beg for, my hand holding him to me. Just holding. He stops again and wipes away at my cheeks and under my eyes.

"Victoria?" His voice, deep with concern, brings so much more to this question than just my name. He wants to know why I'm crying and if I'm okay. But I'm not sure if I'm crying out of sadness or happiness. It feels like both: regret that it took us so long to get here, and relief that we are just finally here. Finally. All of it worth it to get here. A dream realized.

I smile through tears and there's my answer for him. He understands, lips under one eye and then the other, taking away my tears, before finding my mouth again.

"Maybe we could do this, after graduation. Just travel for a while. Land where we land. Stay where we stay."

"Don't say it unless you mean it."

"I mean it. We could do it."

"We could." I smile.

"But you have to get better at deciding where to eat or we'll both starve to death."

"We're eating here." I gesture toward the Thai restaurant. "We have to. We just kissed outside of it, we need to know what the inside's like, and the food, so I can write about it later. Even if it's horrible, it'll be beautiful."

"You know what my goal in life is, and has been since I read that first poem you showed me? To get you to write a happy, I mean cheesy happy poem. Do you think I can get that out of you?"

"Roses are red, violets are blue, no one has ever been as good to me as you."

"Not even close to happy enough," he says shaking his head. "But we'll get there." He kisses me again before we release each other just long enough to meet in front of the car. We walk into the restaurant with laced fingers.

James holds my hand at the table. As we eat, he doesn't let go. I eat my pad thai with one hand, while he caresses my knuckles. Every time our eyes connect, he smiles, which makes my smile widen.

"What?" he asks, chewing.

"I don't think I've ever seen your dimples so much."

With his mouth closed, still chewing, his dimples deepen.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you for reading, reviewing, rec'ing. You're all amazing. The new follows were crazy last week. Hi, new readers!

As always, thank you to myimm0rtal for her beautiful beta services, and to my DTCPS girls for reading bits and pieces, suggesting, inspiring, supporting. Love to you all.

And, oh my gosh, Victoria, I've been waiting to get her here for so long.


	28. Dust

**In the Debris**

**Dust**

**Victoria**

We aren't on earth. We've been mingling with stars, glitter in the sky. It wasn't until we left the restaurant, hand-in-hand, when I realized the stars and the moon had not been watching us through the window of the car, it had been_ us_ who had floated right up through nighttime clouds as we'd kissed. Even through dinner, as the server had tried to talk us out of eating there by showing us her braced arm, telling us she was offered no insurance and had to pay out of pocket, and did we really want to eat in an establishment that treated its employees that way—even through all of that, our feet were never on the ground.

She must have noticed the way we smiled through her sob-story, the way we waved goodbye to her goofy enough to be called drunk, or high.

We were supposed to have made it farther along in our journey than the tip of Oregon on our first day driving, but seriously, how could we leave this town now after what had happened in the car outside the restaurant?

The road to the motel is so dark we're like bats trying to find our way. For at least a mile, all we can see is the few feet of road the headlights shine on. Still, we are so far from blind. We're not blind at all. When we look at each other, we see everything.

Settled in a room of rust carpet and gold bedding, lamps with fringe hanging from the bottom, I fiddle with my fingers. I search and search through my suitcase for something to wear to bed as if searching for a prom dress, and then, sitting on my knees, I fiddle with my fingers some more. The same fingers James had held in his so much tonight, so tight. I wouldn't be able to stop my smile if I tried, and who's trying?

I drop my hand to the mess of clothes.

"What are you doing, crazy?" He kneels down beside me, his hand rubbing along the back of mine. Fingers slide between fingers. "What are you thinking about right now?"

I turn my head and look up at him. "You." James has filled my thoughts just as if he's my blood and all of it has rushed to my brain.

It seems he can't help his smile, either.

"Yeah? Thinking about me makes you look like this?" He touches under my chin. I nod against his fingertip.

"Guess so."

"Good." And his lips are on mine.

He guides me by my waist, pulling, lifting, until we're both standing, walking, sort of tripping toward the bed.

He pulls the covers back and I stop the kiss.

"Wait. I-I can't get in those sheets with my dirty clothes on, and I have to brush my teeth. My mouth is still all sp-spicy from dinner." Having failed to notice this before now, I cover my mouth, and I glance over at my open, frazzled suitcase, still having no idea what I'm going to wear to bed. I brought only the normal night shirts, nothing at all revealing or halfway sexy.

"Hey, hey, Victoria?" He leans down, searching for my eyes. "Listen. You - we're, I mean, we're not. Not tonight, all right? It's so brand new and... so you don't have to worry or be nervous or anything. Okay?"

"Okay." I exhale. "Okay."

I finish getting ready for bed, pulling on a regular night shirt. In the bathroom, I brush my teeth next to James. I watch him through the mirror. Our elbows touch.

We climb under the sheets from opposite sides of the bed like it's natural, meet in the middle, and kiss. I love the way he kisses. His kisses are like... they're like... love. This is the way love feels and tastes. It's how snow must feel when the sun warms it, melting it to its original and truest form.

And once it melts, it doesn't disappear the way it seems to, but becomes part of the earth. Just like James and me and love.

We're nowhere else.

There's no room, there's no lamp, there's not even a bed. There's only us.

His lips are soft, and they give and they take, and then give some more. I try to give back, my hands on his shoulder, pushing. Pushing him to his back, kissing him until he groans and says, "Victoria," and he turns me over like nothing.

We kiss like we'll kiss forever; we kiss our lips raw and our minds incoherent; we kiss each other to sleep.

My temple's against his bare chest, my pulse against his heartbeat, his fingers tangled in the ends of my hair. And I'm back, all the way at the top of the sky with the stars and the moon. I might as well be the moon. I'm sure that, even under the blankets, I'm glowing.

.

We're on the road before it's light out, rain falling fast, like fingernails drumming a wild rhythm over the car. We're going all the way in to Sonoma today, only stopping for bathroom breaks and drive-thru meals.

By one we're in California. I watch the coast, waves hitting rocky cliffs, the forever ocean blending into fog.

James smiles when he kisses me, I remember. Almost every time. In the morning, showered, dressed, James had taken my face in his hands and stared at me. A smile crossed his lips. He kissed me. Smiling kisses, ending with a laughing hug.

It's in the quieter moments when you can learn the most important things about a person. Like in the silence of a smile. James could never again tell me that he loves me, but I'll still know it to be true with every smiling kiss he gives me. My own smile is aimed out at the ocean. And even if I'm not looking at him, and even if he can't see me, the smile's for James.

Sun begins to strike through clouds. The farther south we go, the clouds continue to break, the sky opening to blue. I look up at the all-blue February sky, amazed.

Out my window, a flock of blackbirds fly alongside our car, right at my eye level. Not so close I could touch them if I stretched my arm out the window. Not that close at all. But I watch them flying over a green-gold field, passing us by, lifting higher, and I feel like they're telling me something, like we're heading in the right direction.

I lip-balm my lips before taking out my poetry book where I jot down a poem about blackbirds who are wiser than owls. They can see the future and if you pay close enough attention, and if you can keep up, they'll lead you to it.

"Read it to me," James says.

I think it's kind of a happy poem, so I do read it to him.

We're on our way inland, tunneled by redwoods taller than the sky. I try to look up to see the tops of them, but I'd have to stick my head out the window to accomplish this.

James lowers the music. "I've been thinking about something. Don't laugh."

I face him, redwoods gone.

"I think I want to take drafting classes next year. I like building something new, and I want to start from the beginning. The design, the idea."

I touch his arm. "Why in the world would I ever laugh at that?"

"I don't know. I mean, me? Don't you think that's a little crazy?"

"Not for one half of a second. It isn't crazy at all. Why not? Why couldn't you?"

"Yeah. I can take night courses and work during the day."

It is in this moment, this conversation that I see our relationship totally different. That James can even think that any bit of this is laughable shows me that he needs me as much as I need him, but it's just a different sort of need. How badly does he really see himself, and is this view of himself still stemming from when he used to sell?

.

Redwoods give way to rolling hills and row after row of grapevines. We pass big buildings or homes splattered between vineyards. Then, down the hill a ways, there's a broken house, rotted wood, collapsed roof. The house is between two perfectly grown and green trees, bushes, plants, everything around it alive, but the house itself is so dead. I strain my neck to watch it go by. When I look ahead at the road again I wonder what happened to that house. Who occupied it once? Why did they leave? Why did nobody else take over? It was just abandoned to sit and rot, and for how long? How long did it take to turn the wood an almost gray-white, cracking and splitting, roof caving in?

"James, pull over."

"What?"

"Pull over."

"Why?"

"I want to say something and I want you to hear me."

He pulls over to the shoulder. "What's wrong?" His eyebrows tighten together.

"Nothing." I lean forward, taking his face in my hands. "Let's make a pact."

"Okay. What?"

"I love that you say okay before you ask what." I let go of his face but don't look away from his eyes. "The pact is, to never abandon each other, no matter what happens. No matter what."

"That sounds like marriage."

"Not marriage." I shake my head. "This isn't even really about being together in that way, it's about abandonment."

"Are you afraid I'll abandon you?"

"Not you. It's about not abandoning each other. You know how when buildings are abandoned they rot? I think that can happen to people, too. But not to us. Not if we always have each other in some way. Any way."

He picks up my hand and kisses it and against my knuckles says, "We won't abandon each other. It's a pact." He gives me one nod and a smile. And then I lean in and he leans in and our lips meet, sealing our pact.

James starts driving again only to have to stop to let a turtle cross the road. We look at each other and laugh.

"That's the cutest thing," I say.

"It's taking years to get out of the way." He checks his mirrors and I glance over my shoulder. There are no cars behind us yet.

If the blackbirds from earlier live in the future, this turtle lives in the past. Be careful. As cute as he is, he'll hold you back.

The sun is setting by the time we get to the rehab, and I can immediately see why my mom referred to this place as a retreat. It looks like a lodge, a lot like my uncle's lodge, like a huge wooden cabin, and it's surrounded by forest hills, and reaching trees. Some of the trees have blossoms on them. It's like this part of California thinks it's spring already. Inside there's a fire burning in a lounge area. A large mission statement hangs on the wall like art. Something about spiritual healing. I don't read it.

James takes my hand the second we're told my mother is no longer here and they won't release any personal information. He leads me outside, down a hill past garden lawns with benches and two-person swings made from logs, to a deck with umbrellaed picnic tables overlooking the lake. The breeze hits me with the mixed-scent of pine and dirt.

"We'll find out where she went. Just let me think of a way," he says.

Taking my hips, he guides me to the railing, and hugs me from behind.

The wind is cold in my hair, his breath warm on my cheek. "I have an idea. Stay here, okay?"

I turn to him, my fingers barely on his chest. "What's your idea?"

His lips lift into a small, unsure smile as he shrugs a shoulder. "Ask every resident I see if they know her. But you have to stay here."

"Why?"

"Because."

I stare at him for a while, searching his eyes.

"Just because, all right?"

"Give me a reason or I'll follow you." I hold on to the zipper of his sweater as if he can't go anywhere as long as I've got this.

"Because it'll draw more attention if two people are walking around aimlessly."

I nod and let him go. I think I know the real reason anyway. He's afraid I won't be able to handle it if he can't get any answers, or if I hear "Never met her," too many times.

Remembering the blackbirds, I close my eyes. They weren't telling me any message, they weren't leading anywhere. All those blackbirds were really saying was, "We're heading south, just like you." I'll have to rewrite the poem when we get back to the car.

I turn toward the lake, the sun already lower, hatching sparkles like lightning bugs over the water. The lake turns from teal to pewter before James gets back.

I hear his steps behind me but I don't face him until he takes my fingers and says, "I think I know where she is." He guides me to the end of the deck, down some steps, and he keeps walking. We probably aren't even on the rehab property anymore.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Closer to the lake."

We walk down a dirt hill, through weeds, using rocks to keep ourselves from slipping and tumbling. We cross a dock toward a wooden row boat with oars attached to the sides.

"Wait," I say. "Wait."

He climbs into it. "Come on."

I stand still. "We're taking a boat? Whose is this?"

"I don't know. I saw it when you did. Just get in."

"What if the owners find us?"

"They'll tell us to leave." He's smiling at me. As confused as I am, I get in.

The boat rocks, the water sloshing, and I just now notice how quiet everything is. My mind has been so loud it was impossible to notice the quiet before. It makes me shiver.

There are no seats so we sit on the floor of the boat, me between James' legs, mine spread out in front of me. "Why here?" I ask, leaning against him.

"Just for a break." He picks up my hand, sliding his fingers between mine.

"Where is she?"

"I found this guy who says he knew her and Maggie."

"How does he know Maggie?"

"He says they came together and left together. You have her address, right? Up by Mendocino?"

"You think they're at Maggie's house now?"

"Yeah."

"We're going."

"Mendocino's pretty much three hours back the way we came. It'll be almost ten when we get there. Do you think that's too late?"

"I don't care," I say. "We'll wake them up if we have to."

Not quite six and the sun is gone, the lake as black as tar now. The stars here, even though it's February, are so easy to see. I bet I could count them if I tried, if I had the time.

James asks if I'm ready to go.

"Let's just sit here for a minute." I turn to my side, leaning against his shoulder, liking this break. Sitting here, there are possibilities that can be anything. And possibilities, as my blackbird poem reminds me, are usually better than reality.

"Just sit here?" James asks, kissing down my cheek toward my lips. He turns my face, his lips taking mine. He moves so that he's in front of me, and then swoops me into his arms like a strong wind, pulling me close, kissing down my jaw, my throat, following the v-neck of my sweater. He lays me back against the wood, nudging his way between my legs.

Every once in awhile as we kiss, my hands holding tight to his shoulders, I become extra-aware that this is James. This is James kissing me. This is James on top of me. This is James pushing himself between my legs._ James._

"We've never done this before," I say.

"I know. Believe me." He hovers over me, forearms on each side of my face, fingers in my hair. "I'm very aware of how many times we have not done this." He kisses me again.

The boat rocks.

"If we do this travel thing," he says, his breathing getting heavy, "we should stop at as many different lakes as possible."

"This summer."

"We'll rent a cabin. Go on real boat rides."

"No sailboats," I say, remembering the time we almost capsized.

"Nah, man, speedboats."

"Don't call me man." I laugh and pull his face back to mine. Just a little longer. Then we'll go and face the future.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

"I have a dress." Her finger travels around the back of my neck to behind my ear. "It's blue." Lips press into my neck, and the dusty books, the bookshelves, the counter, the cash register, all disappear. My eyes shut. "Dark blue. Like... midnight." I'm starting to get this whole talk to somebody's neck thing.

I'm behind the counter, on a stool at the used books store, Isabella behind me, teasing me like crazy. I work here. I have a job. Here.

I make minimum wage. I can afford gas and dinner, but working here, I'll never be able to buy even one of my cars back from my father.

I've been at the bookstore since school let out today and I'll be back all day tomorrow. With the long President's Day weekend, my free days off school will be spent working. I can't afford to go on the senior ski trip, and Isabella said she'd never snow skied before, and didn't want her first time to be with the whole senior class.

People rarely come in on weekdays. I don't know how the place makes any money. One crotchety man came in yesterday and tried to light a book on fire. That's no way to make money. He was here earlier, too, and I followed him around. He said he'd be back later. I can't wait. I'm sitting on the edge of my stool.

"It's just too bad I don't have a date." She slides around and climbs onto my lap, her arms drifting up my arms to my shoulders. I tuck her in close. She kisses me.

This has been a joke between us ever since my father told Max and me we had to go to this hospital charity event this Saturday night.

He told me over the phone that the purpose of the benefit was to raise money to fund a program that would offer insurance to those who couldn't afford it. "And I expect you to be there," he said.

"You go to a million of these a year. Why do I have to go to this one?"

"Out of those million, this one is important for my family to attend. You're attending. You and Max."

"Can I bring Isabella?"

"No dates. Just my wife and my sons." For a split second I saw my mom's face when he said, "my wife." It's strange the way the mind works, how images just come and go like that, but they can still stop your life for a second, like a pause button mid-thought.

When I told Isabella about it, and that I'm not allowed to bring anyone, she said she was going anyway.

"How?" I asked. In my bed, Isabella was naked on top of me, her arms crossed over my chest, chin resting on the back of her wrist.

"My dad's invited."

I kind of laughed, thinking we'd beaten my father, before logic hit me with how ridiculous it is to ever think anything like that. He has something up his sleeve. He would know that the paramedics are invited. I didn't say any of that to Isabella. I'd have to figure out what's up on my own.

"Tell me more about this dress," I say against her jaw, my hand riding up her thigh.

"Silk," she breathes, my lips trailing along her collarbone until skin disappears under material. "Long. Tight."

Fingering the neckline of her shirt aside, I leave little pecks on her shoulder as I tuck my other hand under the hem of her shirt, holding her waist.

A gust of wind stops me, and I look up as someone walks in. All I can see around the bookshelves right now are shoes. I think it might be the book-burning man. It was the Mark Twain's he was after, all of them, claiming he was the original writer and he'd been plagiarized. He'd stuck a cigarette in his mouth, pulled out a lighter and before I could tell him about the no smoking rule he brought the lighter toward the corner of the book. I blew out the flame and took the book from him. Turning to the copyright date of the book, I tried to point out that if he had written it, his still being alive was an impossibility. When that didn't work, I told him he had to buy the book before he could burn it. I opened the front cover to check the price.

"Four-fifty, and then you can do whatever you want to it." He said he wasn't spending his hard-earned money on lies. I told him in that case, he couldn't burn it and I put it back on the shelf. That pissed him off and he walked out.

He'd returned since, as if he'd forgotten our first encounter, again asking for Twain.

But the man approaching me now as I sit on the stool, Isabella on my lap, isn't the book-burner, he's Garrett. Isabella slides down.

"Thought it was you I saw come in here," he says. He must've spotted me on his way in or out of his pub, only a few doors down. "You working?"

"Yeah." I stand up.

"How you been holding up?"

"All right."

"Yeah? Your brother?"

"It's hard to tell."

He nods. "Saw you in the pub about a month ago. You didn't say hello."

He saw me?

"Stuck to the shadows. This pretty girl was with you." He introduces himself to her and I introduce Isabella.

I clear my throat, unsure of what to say next. I don't feel like getting into why I didn't say anything to him that night.

"I get it. I understand." He pauses, his eyes moving in their sockets like they're pushing thoughts around. "You should come back and play sometime, for old time's sake. Your mother would like that."

I agree that she would, my hands jamming into my front pockets.

"What do you say?"

"I don't know if..." I notice him glance away and there's something there in that second, something I recognize but can't put my finger on exactly what. "Sure, sometime."

"Let's make it sooner rather than later. You let me know."

"What'll we play? I've been out of practice."

"How 'bout your mom's favorite?"

"Thought you didn't do covers."

"For Elizabeth I... She's the exception. She loved_ Let it Be_ better than any of mine."

Freeing one hand from my pocket, I rub the side of my face as I study him. Something's going on here. I'm getting this vibe from him I've never felt before. Or maybe I have but never recognized it.

"I tried to make a joke of it, you know? Teased her about her bad taste." He laughs, shaking his head at the ground.

As I stand here looking at him, I know. Somehow I know the way a person knows his own name. I know who he is as well as I know I'm Edward Anthony Cullen. He's the one my mother loved.

He puts his hand out to shake mine and I stare down at it—his fingers closed, stiff—until Isabella kind of gives my arm a nudge.

I shake his hand and I don't know how I feel about it. He isn't looking away from me, like he's contemplating saying something else. He doesn't release my hand either. He puts his other hand over the top of mine and shakes again. "I never got the chance to tell you how sorry I am about your mother. Elizabeth was-" Still holding my hand he looks off to the side, squinting like he's trying to read the spine of a particular book from this far away. "She was something else."

Taking a deep breath, he releases my hand and turns to leave.

He's almost to the door when I call his name.

He looks over his shoulder.

It's my turn for a deep breath.

"Yeah, son?"

"She, uh, my mom?" I just go ahead and blurt it out. "She loved you."

He takes a few steps toward me and stops, frowning enough to make me question myself. Maybe I was wrong. But then he comes closer to me, putting a firm hand on my shoulder from across the counter, giving me a slight shake. "Thank you."

I feel another hand, a softer hand on my other shoulder. Isabella's.

Garrett squeezes tighter a couple of times and thanks me again.

I turn and Isabella's reaching to hug me. My face falls to her shoulder. I never told her about what my father said about my mom. I didn't believe it, not fully. Not until a few minutes ago. I tell her about it now. There's something about explaining how your mother had a side to her you never knew while your girlfriend's hugging you. It just makes it easer. Not just to say it, but to face it. "I don't think I can play with him again."

Her fingers slide into the back of my hair. "He'll understand."

.

It's obvious I've learned how life can shock a person, how tragedy can take anyone without warning, and after Isabella's mom's car accident, it's probably clear to Isabella, too. But that doesn't make you ready for the next time; all it does is give you this panicky feeling in your chest when you know something's gone wrong, while the words "not again" reverberate through your head. This is what happens to me as soon as we step into Isabella's house. Renee's lying face down on the couch. Charlie's in the chair, leaning over, rubbing her back. Noticing us, he gets up and walks over, eyes red-rimmed, and I know before Charlie says anything. There's been a death. I put my hand on Isabella's back as Charlie opens his mouth to say, "Grandma's had a series of small strokes."

Isabella gasps; he takes her shoulder.

"Her doctor says she'll be okay, but she's recommending a pacemaker. To regulate her heart."

Isabella goes directly to her mother, practically lying on top of her, hugging. I stand here glancing at them, at Charlie, and then back.

After a few minutes, Renee taps the back of Isabella's hand and says, "I'm okay." She wipes her face. "Hi, Edward."

"Hello." And what do I say next? Do I say that I'm sorry? After she's just finished crying? Yes, I think. "I'm sorry." The words seem too small to mean anything.

"Thank you." Her smile is kind of tight, but she tries. She sits up, looking at Isabella. "We're going to visit her next week, okay, honey? You'll miss some school. The doctor needs Grandpa to-to make the decision. About the pacemaker. And he wants my help. Grandma, because of the strokes, doesn't have a very clear head."

"It might clear up." Charlie says. He's back in his chair, taking his wife's hand. "We're told this could be a temporary state. Just trauma. The doctor seems pretty positive."

Isabella nods. She hasn't said anything since we walked in.

Coming back to me, she takes my hand, and we go up to her room. When the door is closed, she brings me to the bed, pulls my arm around her from behind, and I say, "I'm sorry," quieter this time.

"I'm okay," she says, sounding exactly like her mom. "I just want to lie here for a second." The second turns into about half an hour and I don't move except to squeeze her close or kiss her head every so often.

She starts to tell me about her grandma. She tells me about this round footstool she used to sit on as a kid.

"I would spin and spin and spin. It made her mad. She told me to stop it. I might break it. It was so hard to stop, Edward. It was too fun." She lets a small laugh out. "I asked her for it when I was six. I asked her if I could have it when she died. It was weird because... I didn't think anything of it when I asked, you know? But after the words were out, I knew it was wrong. Or mean or something."

"What did she say?"

"She said she was never going to die. And when you're a kid... I believed her. I thought she had some secret to everlasting life. And I liked that."

I move a little closer to her, but we can't get any closer so all I really do is move us both.

"She wears tape in her hair."

"What?"

"Little pieces of pink tape. She wears them in her hair at night, to keep the curls in place while she sleeps. It was always weirder to me that the tape was pink than that she taped her hair. Like, it's tape in your hair. It's not going to be pretty no matter what color it is." Her laugh lasts longer this time.

"What else?"

She turns to face me and I brush her cheek back and forth with my thumb. "She always insists I have a cookie. Every time I visit, even if I say no thank you, she'll put one on a napkin in front of me."

"Why would you say no to a cookie?"

"They're always oatmeal raisin." She scrunches up her nose. This time I laugh.

"Does she do what you and your mom do? With the candles and herbs and stuff?"

"Oh, the _magic_?" She pokes my stomach. "She thinks my mom's crazy."

I ask her to sit up for a second, I want to check something. When she's out of the way, I lift her pillow to see if she has lavender under there, and she does. I pick it up. There's a ribbon wrapped and tied around it.

"What are you wishing for now?"

She takes it from me and puts it back under her pillow. "Nothing."

"Come on. Tell me."

"I'll tell you when it comes true."

She pulls me down with her. She kisses me. Subject changed.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you readers! And thanks to my girls who write with me even when I don't think my brain can write. Thank you to my beta, who thinks she's slow, but she's really fast!

oh, and I have a brand new tumblr blog where I reblog pictures that go with my stories, or just random things I like, and sometimes post teasers.

/inribbons. tumblr. com


	29. Ruins

**In the Debris**

**Ruins**

**Victoria**

The glow from windows and porch lamps light our way, shining over us as if offering warmth where there isn't any. It's so freezing, the air misty-wet, the wind beating. We climb concrete steps to the apartment where James knocks. I face him, pressing my forehead into his sweatshirt. His hand comes to the back of my head.

When the door opens, I spin around. A woman with a mop of brown hair is tightening the belt of her robe. "Yes?"

I let James speak, or wait for him to. "We're looking for Charlotte Mayes."

"Who's looking for her?"

"I'm her daughter," I say.

"Victoria?" She reaches into the pocket of her robe, puts on a pair of glasses and then pulls me into the apartment. "Oh my god, honey. Do you remember me? God, I haven't seen you since you were, what? Four or five?" She pulls my arms out to the side, scanning me up and down. "Look at you. You're beautiful. Look at you."

She's not that beautiful. Or she might be, in a different state. But right now, behind her glasses, her eyeliner is all smudged, and half gone, like it's leftover from yesterday. Her hair is a nest on top of her head, as if she put it into a loose bun and then slept in it. Her robe is thin and tattered, stretched out so that it lays in an uneven line down by her calves, almost like scalloped edges. I wonder how old it is. I wonder when it was last washed. "Are you Maggie?"

"Do you remember me?" She puts her hands on my face, some of my hair scrunched up in between. I want her to take her hands off me.

"Sorry, I don't." I step away from her touch. When I glance down, her feet are bare, her toenails a bit too long.

"It's late, isn't it? What time is it? Are you hungry? Who's your friend? He looks like Kurt Cobain… but cleaner." She laughs as if we might join her, as if we're in any mood to laugh. I force a smile and feel James' fingers on mine at the same time.

I introduce her to James. "Is my mom here?"

Her eyebrows reach for each other. "I'm sorry. She left last month. She wasn't doing too well."

"Where did she go?" I look around. It's all one big brightly-lit room: living room, kitchen, dining area, and then the hallway, dark.

"I mean, she just went. Packed up and went. You know your mom."

"No, I don't." My blink is long as I try to keep my voice controlled. My jaw doesn't seem to want to open, so I speak between my teeth. "Where?"

"Maybe back to Arizona. I can find out for you. I'd have to make some calls."

"But she was living here? Is that true?"

She nods, distracted, like the question isn't worth thought, isn't worth an answer. "You two should stay here tonight. You can have her room." She claps her hands like that's the best idea. She insists we stay and when I look up at James, he agrees. After we bring our bags in, we admit we're hungry. We came right from the rehab, no stops. Maggie searches for food but can hardly find anything that isn't take-out and half-eaten.

"I'll scramble you up some eggs." She pulls an egg container out of the fridge.

I tell her not to go to too much trouble.

"You know what's trouble? All the damn moisture here." She whisks up the eggs, takes a pan out of the drying rack next to the sink, and turns the stove on. "I had to get rid of the last wooden adirondack chair out on my terrace. Not even that old. The air here, it eats at wood like termites. I'm replacing everything with metal and plastic. I tell ya. Not as pretty, but pretty doesn't last long here when we're talking wood. Not unless you want to sand it and restain it all the damn time." She pauses to scramble up the eggs and slip them onto plates, but then talks all the way through our meal.

Pouring us orange juice, she talks. Taking our plates to the sink, she talks. I'm pretty sure James hasn't said a word since we brought our bags in.

After we're done, James and I shut ourselves in my mom's old room, and I immediately hate it. I try to ignore my hatred by showering in the adjoining bathroom and then climbing into bed, pretending it's any old bed. But I can't get comfortable.

It's not as if I can feel my mom here; she's not like a ghost or anything, it just feels like some stranger's place. But knowing she lived here is enough to make me squirm.

"Did you see her? She looks strung out. And did you hear her? She sounded like she was rolling. I hate staying here with someone who most likely used right along with my mom."

James pulls me against his body, and kisses the side of my face. "Just think of it as saving money."

My head on his shoulder, I try to sleep but even close to James, with his fingers tickling my arm, I can't.

I sit up. "I can't sleep here, James. Not on this bed. I'll never fall asleep."

"How about the floor?"

"Do you think it's clean?" It doesn't_ look_ dirty, but something about this whole place makes my skin crawl like a million microscopic bugs trampling all over my body.

Rubbing his scruffy chin, he sits up. He hasn't shaved since before we left. "Do you want to leave? Get a hotel?" His eyes are right on mine. "We can leave." He brushes his fingers over my forehead. "If that's what you want."

I think about this. She has information I need. "I guess we should stay. On the floor." We get up and he lays the comforter on the floor and tosses the pillows down, while I rip the top sheet off the bed. We cover ourselves, and I rest again against James. But I don't sleep. Not a wink.

I lay and wait for morning, poem after poem taking shape in my head all night long. It seems like forever passes before the first fleck of light sneaks through the window. And I'm up, getting dressed, brushing my teeth. I let James sleep.

Maggie offers us Cheerios for breakfast and tells me that my mom isn't where she thought she'd be.

"Got off the phone ten minutes ago."

I put my spoon down. "Well, where is she?" Unable to just sit, I stand up. James does, too.

"Don't know. This is what she does. She's not someone easy to chase around, she moves too much."

"Why does she move all the time?"

She sighs. "I asked her that once. I said, 'Stand still. Just stand still for five minutes.' She told me... she said she's chasing after who she wants to be and running away from who she is."

"Her whole life, though?"

"Some people, Victoria, they're like haunted by their past. You let too many opportunities get by, make too many mistakes, and all you're doing all the while is getting older."

"But don't you have any other ideas where she'd go?"

"You just have to wait. That's how it is. Eventually she comes back. She always comes back."

I can't stop my glare. "Not to me. She never. Comes back. To me!"

I walk out to the terrace. I hate that she's not doing more to find my mom. I hate that she remembers me and I don't remember her. I hate everything about her and I don't even know her. There's a small round grill in the corner that I want to push over the edge. I put both my hands on it, ready to push.

"Hey." His voice is soft, like it's part of the wind, the kind of sound you're not sure you really heard. But he touches my shoulder and I know he's there. Turning around, I fall into his arms.

"We've wasted our time. It's a wasted trip." Why am I surprised? "We wasted our - our money. We told stupid lies. We-"

"Shh. Victoria, hey, listen." He pulls back from me, his hands holding my face, fingers woven into my hair. "I've been thinking. Let's pretend this is just a vacation, that there's no reason for it but getting away."

"Pretend? Yeah, I'm good at that. Look how I pretend. I pretended I might find my mom so hard that we both believed it."

"Okay, then not pretend. Let's change it. The reason we're here. Not for pretend, for real, from now on and until we get home. We're just roaming, like you said you wanted to do. We're on vacation. You and me."

"Vacation?"

"Think about it." His fingers wrap around the backside of my hand pulling it to his chest. "We're together now. You had us make that pact. It's not wasted, is it?"

I turn my hand around so that we're palm to palm. "No, it isn't."

"See?"

He smiles at me. He's actually smiling, and it's probably the thing my heart needs most in this moment.

"James..." I look away from him so that I don't start crying.

"Yeah?" His fingers lace with mine.

"I-I'm glad you're here."

His other arm encircles me, pressing me to his chest, our joined hands squishing between us. "I wouldn't be anywhere else."

We decide to bundle ourselves up and go to the beach, since that's what people do on vacation.

Before we leave, Maggie tells me she'll let me know if she hears from my mom. Pressing my number into her phone, I tell her I won't be holding my breath.

I stop in front of the door. If Maggie knew me when I was little, maybe she knows who my dad is. I turn around and ask. But she tells me that my mom doesn't even know.

"How can someone not know who they've slept with? Because that's how you make a baby. You have sex. You're aware of it when you're doing it. I think you'd know who's on top of you or under you at the time."

"Maybe it's that she didn't want to know," Maggie says. "Or didn't want to face it."

"You know what? She sounds like the most selfish person in the world. And I kind of feel blessed that I don't know her. Don't waste your time looking for her. I'm done with this."

In the car I tell James I'm giving up smoking weed. "I'm not going to end up like my mom. Not anywhere close to that."

"You wouldn't."

"How do you know?"

"I wouldn't let you."

Watching the road, I almost don't say it. But almost really doesn't mean anything. "And we all just _let_ my mom become what she is?"

"No." He glances my way. "No." He picks up my hand and kisses my knuckles. "No." Setting our hands between us, our fingers intertwine. "I just meant, I know you and I know me. Forget it. If you want to stop smoking, then stop. But just... don't think you're like your mom. Because you're not."

The truth is, it would be nice to get high right now. Maybe even perfect.

"I don't know. I'm getting the feeling that anyone can become like her. Anyone at all in the right**—or wrong**—circumstances."****

"Not anyone. Just some people."

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

Max looks good in a suit. I keep bugging him about it because he hates wearing it. He can't wait to take it off. The first thing he does in the banquet room is drape his jacket over the seat where his place card is, and then he loosens his tie.

He wanders off with a couple of guys his age.

A band is starting up on a stage at the far end, the banquet hall filling fast. I'm on the lookout for Isabella. I'm pretty sure Victoria's aunt and uncle will be here, too. Them, I'll avoid to keep from having to answer any questions.

"You remember Heidi," my father says, his hand on my shoulder. I turn around. He knows full well I remember her. "And Dr. and Mrs. Fielding."

I shake their hands.

"They'll be dining with us."

I clamp my teeth down and try not to let my expression change. I search the hall again for Isabella, tilting my head to look around suits and dresses. I don't think she's here yet.

"Hi, Edward," Heidi says, bringing my attention back to her. Our parents have gone off, leaving the two of us alone.

About a thousand ways this night can go wrong flash-flood my head. My past is here, Heidi, not only catching up with my present, Isabella, but my future. It's one thing to tell someone about your past, it's a whole other thing for that person to see it.

This is what my father's planned. But so far, it's salvageable. Every move I make and everything I say just has to be calculated so that nothing happens to hurt Isabella. I can't relax or let my guard down once.

"What's up?" I say. She's grown her hair, it's hitting her shoulders, and she looks off, like someone new, someone I don't know.

"You look handsome. Really good." Sliding an arm through mine, she leads me toward double doors that open to a balcony. I take her hand, open it and free my arm, stopping where I am between two tables before we make it outside.

"Why have you been away so long? My bed's been cold without you." She steps toward me, her hand going for my crotch, making it there before I can block her. Stepping back, I shove her hand away. No matter what, she can't get a reaction out of me. If I so much as twitch at her touch, I'll feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. I hold onto her wrist for a minute, making sure she keeps her hand by her side.

"I have a girlfriend," I say, almost like it's one long word, and I'm blocking myself below the belt as if I'm about to get kneed in the balls.

"If it was a girlfriend you wanted, you should've just said something." She lifts her head and closes her eyes slowly. I remember this look. I look away. I look around for Isabella again.

"She'll be here tonight. Can you just... I don't want to be rude, but can you just stay away from her? Please?" And this is me actually pleading. It comes out almost like a whine.

"Edward." The sound of her voice, like she's offended, brings my eyes to hers again. "What do you think I'm going to do?"

"Maybe nothing. But Isabella. She's different, okay? She's..."

Heidi closes her eyes for a second. "Different? Meaning better? Meaning innocent? Different how? Different in that you wouldn't take and take from her, and then just drop her like an old shoe. Different like that?"

This is going all wrong. I should shut my mouth. You don't imply to a girl that another girl is better than her. I've dug my hole deeper. I'm opening the door to my father's trap and walking right into it.

"No. I'm sorry about that. I was wrong to treat you that way. I know that. You didn't deserve that."

"Right. I didn't deserve it then, and I definitely do not deserve to be treated like an old fuck-buddy now. We were more than that to each other—for like, years."

It was about a year and a half, but I'm not going to bother correcting her.

"Okay, I know. But that's over," I say. "It's been over for a long time." I haven't cracked a smile since I saw her, and maybe that was my first mistake. Maybe I should've approached her differently. But how? If I'd acted happy to see her, well, that could've been way worse than what I'm dealing with now.

"You know what would've been nice? If I had gotten that 'It's Over' memo. I was worried about you, you know?" Her head tilting, she reaches for my arm and I let her take it this time. "I wanted to be there for you. However you needed me." She lets go of my arm. "And you just acted like I was nobody._ Nobody_."

I don't know what to say so I just stare down at her.

"You could've at least returned a call. One call."

I move back to our table, pull a chair out, offering her a seat. It's Max's seat.

I sit next to her, my arms on my knees, leaning toward her. "I've thought that, too. I should've called. I-I had to deal with it on my own. But I should've at least told you that. I get it."

"You do seem different, don't you? Sweeter. You're sweet to her like this? She gets this part of you? I didn't even get a 'don't let the door hit you in the ass.'"

I sit up straight. "I said I was sorry." The words come out harsh, but forget it, this is getting annoying. Isabella will be here soon and I'm getting nowhere with Heidi.

"Oh." With her head cocked to one side, she's nodding. A sarcastic nod. "Well then, as long as you're sorry. They're just words. You say you're sorry. We leave here tonight and never talk again, right? That's how sorry you are. It's bullshit."

"What do we have to say to each other anyway? We've been talking in circles about the same damn thing for ten minutes."

"You're right. We don't have anything to say to each other." She gets up and walks away. I lean back in my chair, my legs straightening in front of me. Can tonight be over?

I head to the bar and order a shot.

The bartender tells me he's supposed to card anyone under thirty, but he's already pouring the tequila.

"I'm thirty-seven."

He drops the glass in front of me and I throw it back, and then do the same with a second one.

Through the doors directly across from me, Charlie and Renee walk in, Isabella right behind them. Something rushes at my chest. I feel this a lot when I see Isabella unexpectedly, but seeing her now, pale in the dark blue dress she promised, hugging her body in a way I'd want to wrap myself around her, my hand might be reaching for my chest as I walk right to her.

"Hi." I give her a kiss and a hug. Feeling silky material and then skin, her bare back, I rub there. "Be my date?"

"No dates tonight, Mister." She taps my nose.

"You're beautiful," I say and she repeats the compliment to me, pulling me out to the hallway.

"I have something for you."

People pay no attention to us, and we pay no attention to them as they enter the banquet room. They're nothing but blurs.

She slips something into my chest pocket.

Looking down at the pocket, I pull whatever it is out, some smooth white stone, not perfectly round and not much bigger than a quarter.

"Moonstone," she says. "Some people believe it contains shine from the moon inside." She touches my lips. "It's for luck." Her finger slips over my chin, down the middle of my throat. "For protection." Under my jacket, her hand presses against my chest. "For love that never stops, keep it close to your heart." She takes it from me, tucking it back into my jacket pocket.

I catch her hand and kiss it. I'm trying to figure out what this really is, this moonstone. Does she believe it does all she says it does? She can't believe it's actually a part of the moon.

She must notice some confusion in my face because she starts to explain more.

"Edward, it's - You tell me you love me and you need me. I'm giving you _my_ love and_ my_ need. It's right there in your pocket."

Our fingers linked, I bring them up between us, up to my chest. "Hey, come here." I pull her into a kiss. "That's the best gift ever. So much better than hair conditioner."

She laughs.

Her hair is pulled up away from her neck, and I run the back of my finger up and down the side of her throat. "Thank you." I kiss her again until she says we should go into the party.

On our way in she tells me she got two texts from Victoria in the car tonight.

"One said_ no mom yet_, and the other said_ love. _Do you think that means. Does that mean...?"

"What do you think it means?"

"It could mean a lot of things, but I hope it means James."

Not even five minutes inside and Heidi's already looking at us from the other side of the room. Isabella notices, too. "Some pretty girl is staring at us."

"Yeah, she's this girl I used to—sort of—date. She's kind of the opposite of you."

"And what am I?"

"Awesome."

Heidi's coming closer.

I think that maybe if I never make eye contact she'll go away.

"Are you Edward's girlfriend?" No such luck.

My arm is fast around Isabella's waist and I pull her in close to my side.

Heidi introduces herself and reaches for Isabella's hand. They shake.

"I'm his ex," she says, and then laughs. "Well, I'm not sure if _ex_ is the right word since we never officially broke up." She has a smile on her face that doesn't give away any sarcasm. "I mean, what would you say? Someone starts treating you like he can't even see you. Like you're nothing but dirt from the ground. That might be an official break up, right?"

"Heidi." I start and stop. I want to say that we were never anything official, but I don't want to make this worse, or her worse.

I run my hands up Isabella's ribcage and back down to her waist where I squeeze her even closer to me. I hope she feels what's meant in this touch.

"Oh, how could I forget?" She hits her hand to her forehead. "You apologized a few minutes ago. At our table. Our knees were touching." She smiles at Isabella. My stomach clenches. "That makes everything better. I'm so silly." Hands on her hips, and with the smile still there, she shakes her head.

"It's nice to meet you," Isabella says, seeming unaffected by Heidi. "His knees touch mine all the time. I can see how that would make everything better."

Then Heidi leans in and whispers something to Isabella that makes her smile fall for the slightest second. It's back again so fast that if I hadn't been watching I'd have missed it. The whispering continues too long before Isabella says, "Thank you for the advice. I don't think I need it."

Heidi looks at me and then back at Isabella. "Trust me, you do," she says and walks away.

"What did she say?"

Avoiding eye contact with me she tells me she's going for a drink. "Do you want anything?" She sounds sweet and unbothered, while her evasive eyes say something else. I move in front of her, searching out eye contact, but she won't let me find it.

"I'll go with you."

"I just need a sec. I'll be right back." Still, nothing in her voice falters. She starts for the bar but I take her hand and spin her around.

I get flashbacks of the time my father called her garbage and I couldn't get her to talk to me.

"Don't do this. Tell me what she said."

She shakes her head.

"Please."

Even in her heels she has to stand on her toes to reach up to whisper to me. Not for long, though. I lean down for her. "She told me how you like to be touched."

So many things run through my head that I'd like to do right now, most of which involve me going off on Heidi, which will undoubtedly make everything spin further out of my control. "And how's that? What did she say, exactly?"

"She said you like it hard and rough and that she, um-" she pauses to swallow "-she taught you that."

"Bella…" She isn't meeting my eyes again. "Did she say anything else?"

"You heard the rest."

I lead her by the hand through the crowd out to the balcony.

I should probably consider myself lucky that Heidi didn't tell Isabella about how she touched me just a little while ago, spinning that into something it wasn't. What if she does tell her? And now I'm feeling guilty as hell over something I didn't want or ask for, but it's something I know and Isabella, my girlfriend, doesn't know. Is this something you tell a girlfriend? Do I tell her that Heidi grabbed my dick, even if I pushed her hand away so fast I barely felt it? But I did feel it. So, do I tell her? Even though I didn't want it? The fact is, I was assaulted. So is that what I say? Rational thought tells me the best thing to do is to keep my mouth shut and keep them away from each other, which means not leaving Isabella's side.

I find a spot for us in a corner of the balcony between two plants where nobody else is. There are a few smokers farther away from us, but we're well hidden by the plants. I take off my jacket and wrap it over Isabella's shoulders, and then I step closer, taking her hand and placing it on my crotch. I push against her hand. "I only like to be touched by you. You taught me what I love."

I gauge her reaction, having no idea if this is the way to bring her back to me or not.

One side of her lips lift. "Did you just get yourself a free feel?" She may be laughing, but she hasn't let go of me. In fact she's pressing her hand against me and giving me a squeeze. Surprised, I let out a quiet groan, my hand catching myself against the brick wall behind her. She rubs up and down a few more times and my head drops, my chin to my chest, as I push myself against her hand again. It's automatic. But then she pulls away.

"Don't stop," I whisper.

"Edward, we're in public. Our parents are here!"

"Shh, they're not out here and the jacket's hiding everything."

"Edward!"

I lower my forehead to her shoulder laughing. "You're a tease." I kiss the side of her neck.

"You started it."

With her touch off me, my senses clear and I'm reminded why I started it. "Don't let her get to you. She's doing it on purpose."

"I know."

"I might deserve it, but you don't."

She kisses me. "You don't deserve it. Whatever was between you and her, it's finished. She should've gone on with her life by now."

"But she's jealous because I chose you over her. Not that there was any competition, but that's how she sees it. She let me know that before you got here."

"You know what I think? We've given her too much of our attention already."

"See what I mean when I say you're awesome?"

She tells me she has to go to the bathroom and I walk her there, feeling like I should stand guard. I spot Heidi on the other end of the room talking with some dudes and so I feel okay to walk the few feet to the bar and order another shot.

This Heidi thing won't get off my mind, though. As long as she's here she's a threat. And she'll be here all night.

I wish there was someone I could ask for advice, but there's no way I'm talking to my father about this. My eyes land on Esme, standing with a small group next to my father. I do three more shots before Isabella's out of the bathroom.

"You're drinking?"

I answer by ordering two more shots and passing one to her. We shoot it together, and I smile at her.

"Just for tonight."

We toss back one more shot and then I say, "Hey, do me a favor and dance with Max for a song or two?"

She smiles like it's a fun idea and I look for Esme. She's the only person I can ask.

Standing behind her, I have to wait for a pause in the conversation before I can take her aside.

I tap her shoulder. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

She asks me if I've been drinking.

I fold my arms across my chest and face the floor. "I need some advice, from a woman, I think."

I look up to see her tilt her head at me, and I can tell what's running through her mind. She's remembering that I don't have a mother and she's my mother figure. The same thing is running through my mind. "This is all - this is - it's hypothetical," I say, even though I know she's smart enough to figure out the truth. And I tell her as coherently as possible in my current tequila-induced state, what happened in my "hypothetical" situation.

"Does the guy tell his girlfriend, or not?"

"If he tells her, she'll be hurt."

I know this much already.

"But if he doesn't tell her," she says, "and she finds out some other way, she'll think there's more to the story. She'll wonder why he didn't tell her, what he has to hide."

"But if he doesn't tell her..." I point at her. "And she never finds out from - another way, the only other way…"

"Then you're safe," she says.

"And not guilty?"

All she does is look at me. No answer.

Why do I feel so guilty? I walk away from Esme, back to the bar, in no changed position from before our talk. Except now I'm humiliated that Esme knows.

I take another shot. "Last one," I tell the bartender, or myself. _How many is that?_

"I've poured you seven."

"Seven."

"'Fraid so."

I sit on a stool waiting for Isabella to return from dancing with Max, until I notice she's done dancing with Max, and she's talking, face to face, with Heidi.

"What the fuck?" With edges of my vision blurred, I rush over, taking Isabella's hand. "I have to talk to you." And I glance over at Heidi. "Stay the fuck away from her-" I lower my voice and get a little closer "-all right?"

I don't wait for an answer, pulling Isabella back out to the balcony, over between the plants.

"What did she say this time?"

"Nothing."

"Tell me."

"Nothing, Edward. She was being kind of nice this time. She said she was sorry about before."

"Okay, okay, look. She's playing some kind of- something - like a game, and I have to tell you something."

She's looking at me with narrowed eyes, what looks like apprehension. I don't know how to say it, how to soften the blow, so I just spit it out. Or so I think.

"Before you got here, she, you know." I make a raised eyebrow face that I'm sure tells her exactly what Heidi did.

"She what?"

"Touched me."

"What do you mean? Your knees?"

"She grabbed me."

"Grabbed you?"

"Grabbed my junk."

"Edward, what?"

"She grabbed my dick, okay? I didn't see it coming, but I pushed her hand away as soon as I could, and this has been eating at me all night, so I had to tell you."

"Are you serious right now, or drunk?"

"Both." I search her eyes, try to get a read on what she's thinking or feeling. She's too silent. "Bella?"

"What else?"

"No, nothing else. I swear I didn't feel anything. Except, like fear, or disgust. That's it. My guy didn't even move an inch. Nothing."

"Your guy?"

"Do you want me to say my dick again?"

She flinches.

"Fuck, I'm sorry. I should've told you this sober."

"She seriously grabbed you?"

"It was fast - you - like this." I show her with my own hand what it looked like, and I show her with my other hand how I pulled Heidi's hand off me. "Fast. See?"

When there's no reaction, I close my eyes. It must not have sunk in yet, and I brace myself for when it does.

"What a _bitch_."

I open my eyes. "Yes. Yeah, she is a bitch. Right?"

"She assaulted you."

"Yes! That's what I thought, too!" I'm smiling. Too big, I realize, when I see that Isabella isn't smiling. She's frowning.

"And then she had the nerve to tell me how you, how you like to be touched? She did that on purpose. Because you pushed her hand away!"

My eyes go wider. That's something _I_ didn't even put together. "You're a _genius_."

She laughs at that, and I'm so relieved to hear her laugh that I kiss her, and I'm so relieved that she kisses me back that I kiss her deeper, my arms wrapping around her.

"Edward."

"Yeah?" I kiss her again.

"I need a drink. Go get us a bottle of whatever, and keep that bitch away from me."

"You got it. Wait here, beautiful. My beautiful. My Bella."

She laughs again.

"You're so goddamn fucking beautiful when you laugh. When I want to see you laugh and you're - you laugh, there's nothing more beautiful."

"Go get a bottle, you drunk."

When I get back to our spot, Isabella's missing. I turn circles a few times wondering what happened, if I should wait here or go looking for her. I'm about to go with the latter when I spot her returning with a styrofoam cup in her hand.

"I know you don't drink it," she says, "but I think you should, just this once. For me?"

I wag the bottle at her. "Champagne."

"I think this is what you need." She takes the bottle from me and pushes the coffee into my hand.

I hold the cup up, trying to make out what I'm seeing. "They have styrofoam in there?"

"They had a choice, this or porcelain. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you need something non-porcelain."

I smell it. "You want me to drink this?"

"Remember that night of your party when you took care of drunk me? Well, now it's my turn." She places a hand on my shoulder. "You don't drink. Remember? I think the only reason you're drinking tonight is because of what your ex-girlfriend did."

"Not girlfriend."

"Okay, your ex-not-girlfriend. But we both have to go home with our parents tonight, and we probably shouldn't do that drunk. And think of Max. As cute as you are right now, you don't want him to see you like this. I know you don't. Drink the coffee. Sober up. And then we'll eat dinner. And that's that."

"She's sitting at my table for dinner."

"Edward." She touches my face. "You've never given me a reason not to trust you. Don't worry so much." Her hand off my face she pushes my cup toward my lips. "Drink."

I drink it. "It's bitter."

"And tequila is the sweetest thing ever, right? Man up."

With an arm around her, I take another sip and lead her to a patio table, sitting her on my lap. She sets the champagne bottle down. "I thought tonight was going to be a royal fucking mess."

"Well, it kind of has been, but it doesn't have to end that way."

I kiss her. We kiss until she takes my hand with the coffee cup and pushes it toward my mouth again, replacing her lips with it. I drink some more.

At dinner, Heidi doesn't even look at me, and still drunk, I have to remind myself not to say anything that comes to mind, so I end up not saying anything at all to anyone. I just eat, and look over my shoulder every once in awhile at Isabella over at her table. Sometimes she's looking back at me, too.

"You're smiley tonight," Esme says to me. "Looks like everything worked out okay."

"What?" I hear my father say as I push another bite of steak into my mouth. I don't say a word.

"Why shouldn't he smile?" Heidi says. "He has a really lovely girlfriend."

My eyes don't leave my plate.

"It's too bad you two couldn't work something out," her dad says, which makes my dad fake a laugh.

I pick up my glass of water and break my vow of silence. "Hey Max?" I raise my water glass to him. "Don't let anybody try to control you. They'll try. Oh, they'll try. Trust it." I glance at my father. "But you don't let it happen. Okay, buddy?"

Max's eyebrows raise and he glances around the table like I might have embarrassed him.

"You just stick to that water, there." My dad pats my arm. "Okay, buddy?" Maybe Max wasn't the only one I embarrassed.

I fall back into my silent, staring at my plate place.

Our family is the last to leave. It's our job to shake too many hands and say goodbye and thank you to too many people. I kiss Isabella as she passes, though. I like that part. She smiles, hands me back my jacket, touches my lips and waves. I check the pocket for the moonstone. It's still there.

.

In nothing but a tank top and light purple panties, one leg hidden under covers, her arms pushed up under her pillow, Isabella's sleeping in my bed when I get home. I can't keep myself from running a hand down her hair, spread all around her, down her arms and back, and then I rub back and forth over her lace-pantied ass a few times. She releases a soft sigh through her nose, I'm hoping in response to my touch, but other than that she doesn't move.

I take off my jacket and throw it over my chair, heading for the bathroom.

Jane might have still been here to let Isabella in, and if not, Isabella knows the alarm code, so I understand how she's in my bed, but I have no idea how she got to my house in the first place. I didn't see her truck outside. I brush my teeth, undress, dropping my clothes on the floor next to Isabella's, and then slide into bed on my side, pulling her close.

"Bella," I whisper against her throat. "Someone left a present in my bed."

She stretches, smiling, eyes still closed. "I wanted to sleep with you tonight."

Her hand rests against the side of my neck. I slide my hand up under the back of her shirt, and I press her closer. "How did you get here?"

Her leg lifts over mine. "I drove."

I kiss her. "Where's your truck?"

"In the trees."

I laugh and kiss her again.

"You taste like toothpaste." I pull her hips against me.

Her voice shakes. "So do you."

My hand slips easily up her shirt and down again, down her waist, her hips, her thighs.

I kiss near her ear. "Bella, Bella, My Bella, your skin is so soft." I roll her onto her back, hold her arms above her head and kiss over her neck until she squirms. She wiggles her arms free from my hold so she can wrap them around me, and I move down, push her shirt out of the way and kiss her stomach. "How do you get it this soft?"

Her laugh is quiet, her stomach tensing up and I kiss the tense out of it.

I make my way back to her mouth and kiss her soft and then hard and then soft again.

"Edward," she says and it's just a breath. "Edward." She pushes me to my back and climbs on top of me. "You kiss like..."

"Like what?" My hand on the back of her head, I bring her lips to mine.

"Like everything good."

Holding her waist I press her down against me as I lift my hips. Still some of my drunk hanging around, my groan is too loud.

"Shh." She kisses me.

"Lift up," I tell her so I can slide her panties down. As she helps get them off, I take my boxers off, too, and then I'm inside her and with no need for condoms anymore, it's just skin. I must be breathing too loud again because she covers my mouth with her hand, releasing it only to kiss me and then covering it again because I'm still too loud the whole time.

It isn't until we're finished that I realize I never even removed her tank top.


	30. Driftwood

**In the Debris**

**Driftwood**

**Victoria**

Waves crash loud like thunder until the sound fades to nothing before starting all over again. It's as if the center of the ocean pulls in all the power of the universe and then releases it to shore. Seaweed in the waves travel together in bunches like floating pieces of land—little drifting islands where tiny creatures can find their home. The wind seems to be trying to prove it can knock us down if it wants to. All of it reminds me what ants we are in comparison.

One hand in our pockets holding our jackets tight, the other hand between us, fingers laced, we stumble through sand.

We're sandwiched between the sea and mountainous rock carved by slamming waves, for how long? Decades? Centuries?

Water drips from the rock the way it would drip from a leaky faucet, algae hanging from gray stone like icicles.

Driftwood washed bone-smooth litters the beach, some big enough to look like fallen trees. Only there are no trees growing here. All of this wood has been spit from the surf. The trees are to the distant east, layered high on gold hills like wedding cake tiers, looking like there's nothing beyond them.

This could be the edge of the world.

Seagulls take off in a flock, slow, wings flapping. Flying low above us they look like little gods that own the sky.

"The world feels different here," I say.

"How?" He leans against me, pushing me with his elbow, as if it isn't hard enough to walk through this sand.

"Look at all of this." I let go of his hand, making a wide gesture at the hills topped with trees the rocks—some forming little caves—the driftwood, the sand, and the sea that travels off into the gray for eternity. "It's like this is the whole world and we're the only ones in it."

He squint-smiles at me, taking my hand back. "I like it," he says, pulling me next to him.

"Me, too."

We find a spot between splashes of driftwood, and I drop my backpack to pull the blanket out. It takes both of us to lay it over the beach because the wind keeps trying to whip it away. We sit in silence, watching the waves and feeling each other. We can do that, feel each other even when we're not touching.

I braided my hair in the car as soon as I saw how brutal the wind is here, and now unruly strands are flying all around. I push some behind my ears only for it to be released again. I let it go.

We're not the only ones here for long. Another couple walks by, graying hair, a dog on a leash really trying to get into the ocean, practically choking himself just to step into a wave. Every once in a while the couple laughs at the dog's efforts, and it barks as if calling the wave to come back. It seems neither of them want to step foot in the ocean, and who can blame them. It's got to be like stepping through ice. They don't notice me watching. They keep on going until I can't see them anymore.

James lies on his side, resting on his forearm. "Are you cold?"

"A little."

"We can go under there." He points over my shoulder to where someone has built a sort of fort out of driftwood, each tall log leaning up against another. Even from here I can see that a hole has been dug in the sand so that you walk down into it. It looks like fun, but we wouldn't be able to see the ocean from in there.

"In a little while."

James falls to his back, hands behind his head, and closes his eyes. Listening to the ocean, I watch him do nothing.

My night without sleep catches up to me and with a yawn I'm about to lie with James, rest my head on his chest, when a little girl's scream catches my attention. The crazy child is barefoot, chasing waves, her jeans rolled up to her knees, her straw-colored hair flying behind her like a cape of strings. Her parents, while staying clear of the waves, are not far from her. The mother is wearing a big floppy hat, and the father is carrying his daughter's shoes.

I watch the little girl go from chasing waves to searching the sand for shells. She looks over at me and comes to show me what she's found. I tell her it's the prettiest abalone piece I've ever seen.

"There are bigger ones," she says, beaming at me with all that is childhood in her eyes—the wonder. "Wanna play?"

I look down at James. He pops one eye open. "I'm going to go play," I say.

We search for shells. She's very picky about which ones end up in her pocket and which ones she tosses back in the sand. She brings each shell close to her eye like she's Sherlock Holmes looking for a clue.

"Hey," I say when she throws down an aqua piece of sea glass. "I'll take that one." I pick it up and put it in my pocket.

Once her own pockets are bulging full, she pulls the end of her sweatshirt out like a bowl and we start filling that.

"How old are you?"

She says she's five and asks how old I am.

"Eighteen."

"You're double my age," she says, and I laugh.

"About that."

Squatting down, she finds another shell, giving it the once-over and lets it go, brushing her hand on her jeans. "I'm never gonna grow up."

"Why not?"

She stands, holding her sweatshirt-bowl out in front of her. "I'll miss my toys."

I nod. "Good thinking."

"Do you miss your toys?"

I look out at the sea, considering her question. "When I think about them, I guess I do. But I don't need them anymore."

"That's sad." Her lips turn down.

Her parents call her over, her dad lifting an arm to wave at me. "Siobhan!" they say in unison.

"Time to go," I tell her and she takes off running, shells bundled up in her sweatshirt. She doesn't look back.

James and I decide to make our way under that fort, but just as I pick up my open backpack, I get an idea. I take the white dress my mother saved for me and chase after the little girl. They haven't gotten far as she keeps stopping to jump over waves.

"Hey!"

Her mom looks over at me and calls to the little girl.

"Do you like dresses?" I ask, holding my dress out to the girl. She doesn't reach for it.

"Go ahead. It used to be mine, but it doesn't fit anymore."

She takes it, holds it against her and twists back and forth, making the dress swish-swish.

"Isn't it beautiful?" her mother says, taking the dress, examining the fabric.

"It's handmade," I say.

"I can see that. Look at the embroidery work. It must've taken hours." She looks at me and asks me if I'm sure, and I realize I'm not. I'm not sure. But the little girl looks so happy that I nod my head, I say I'm sure, and I smile to make it believable.

The little girl bends over and starts digging through a plastic bag. When she stands upright again, she offers me the biggest abalone piece we found.

"Are you sure?" I ask.

With one big nod, she pushes it into my hand.

I thank her and return to James. He's standing, watching me.

"You gave your dress away?" He pushes whipping strands of hair from my face.

I place my palm against his chest where his heartbeat would be, only I can't feel it through his jacket. "Just letting go of an old memory I don't need anymore. But look." I hold out the shell. "I got a new one."

As I fill the dress's empty spot in my backpack with the little prized shell, and on top of that the tiny piece of sea glass, my heart doesn't break or crack or split. It doesn't even feel heavy. In fact, it feels lighter.

With all of our stuff, we go down into the driftwood fort, dropping our jackets to sand, and while it's less windy in here, I was wrong before; we can see the ocean between the wood pieces.

I don't peek out for long. On the blanket, on our knees, James starts kissing me, hands gripping my shoulders. "You had an agenda," I say between kisses.

"Mm-hmm," he says, not disrupting the kiss.

Before long he's already pulling on my sweatshirt and I let him take it off, only a tank top underneath. He yanks his own sweatshirt over his head. I catch a slip of his lower stomach, a little trail of light hair, as his T-shirt rises and then falls. Then his lips are back on mine, his hands holding my waist, my hands holding his.

I feel both cotton and skin, and I start pushing his shirt up, pushing it up, trying to feel more and more skin.

His shirt comes off fast. I run my hands along his bare chest. It feels good and smooth and I want to touch more of him.

"This too?" he asks, tugging on the end of my tank top.

I let him.

"I'll keep you warm," he says, lying on top of me, kissing me warm, kissing me almost sweaty.

Tucking his thigh between my legs, he rubs it up against me, as lips sweep my throat, down my chest, over my bra. His hips slide in, my legs open, and he's pushing into me, jeans against jeans, and kind of rolling a little. I gasp. He keeps doing it as his lips pass along my jaw to my ear and down the side of my neck, and I swear I might lose it.

"James. I want…" but I can't finish my thought. This feeling. I reach back for something, but all I find is cool sand. I dig into it and close my hand, capturing as much of the beach as I can hold in one fist. Grains leak between my fingers.

"What do you want?" His mouth and tongue on my throat.

"You."

His voice rumbles deep, it vibrates. "I want you, too."

I kiss his shoulder and continue toward his collar bone. "You taste like salt."

He kisses the same spot on me. "You taste like sugar."

"I do not."

He kisses me there again, right above my collar bone. "Yes, you do."

I lick my arm. "Ew. I do not! You're such a liar." I push at his shoulder.

His kisses continue, undisturbed by my outburst, down my chest and lower. "You taste like sugar," he says again as he kisses the lowest part of my stomach. On my elbows, looking down at him, I see him smile against my skin.

"Mmm," is my answer, and I lie back letting him pretend all he wants that I taste like sugar. With his lips on my body, his tongue, his nose, sometimes his scruff, there's no thinking straight anymore.

He comes back to my mouth, pushing his hips against me again, bringing a gasp out of me, and in nothing but breaths, he says, "Maybe we should go. Go find a hotel." His lips sweep my jaw. "I mean, if you - if you want." Lips down my neck. "No pressure."

"Yes," I say. "I want to."

"We need dinner first."

He kisses me deep and I'd like to argue that we don't need dinner, but my stomach is disagreeing.

We eat at an oceanside restaurant. I would have redone my braid, except that I know if I even attempt to take it out, it will be nothing but a knotted mess, impossible to rebraid without a comb and globs of detangler. So I eat, sand sticking to my jeans and in my loose braid, curls dripping all over the place the way the moss hangs from trees back home. I push hair from my eyes but it keeps falling back every time I bow my head to scoop some pasta into my mouth. For the second time today, I let my hair go, forget about the fact that it has a mind of its own. People with straight hair, they don't know how easy they have it.

We're in Fort Bragg before we find a hotel with vacancy that we can afford. It's a seaside place with a kitchenette, and a patio leading to a beach. We take showers one at a time. James doesn't like this idea. He suggests we shower together.

"I'm too shy. I don't want you to see me naked."

He reminds me that he's already seen me naked. "What do you think I imagine when I'm alone at night?" He cups my face and kisses my lips.

I touch his nose, reminding him that he's never seen me naked with sand all over weird places.

So I step under the shower stream alone, and not really because I'm weirded out about the sand, but because I want to shave my legs and under my arms. I want to get myself so clean I squeak like a mouse. When I dry my hair with my towel, I want my hair to make the sound a rag wiping streaks off a window makes. I want to be _that_ clean.

And then I want to brush my teeth until my gums are raw, and put cream on my face and lotion over every inch of my skin from my neck to the in-betweens of my toes. I use the sweet stuff so that if I can't really taste like sugar, at least I can smell a bit like it.

A bang on the door makes me jump out of my sweet-smelling skin. It echoes through the bathroom.

"Okay in there?" he asks.

"Yes," I somehow say, even though I'm not okay. I'm now thinking that it's too much. Too many good smells, too clean, trying too hard. I start to panic because the strong hotel soap smell doesn't mix well at all with my vanilla scented lotion. I do jumping jacks until I start to sweat a little, and I walk out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, somewhat out of breath. I can't look at James.

"All yours."

Looking at him or not, he catches me from behind, pressing a kiss to my neck. "Hello, beautiful." He smells like damp driftwood, sweat, and seaweed, and I think it all smells better than I do.

Since I still have nothing any sexier to wear than I had two days ago, I wear only my skin under a towel while James showers. Sitting on the edge of the bed I comb the ends of my hair, dreaming of him. I don't see the gray carpet or the blue curtains. All I see is James in the shower, wet and lathering up. What is he washing? What is he washing right now? I see him smiling at me. It makes me smile at the wall.

I cross one leg over the other and run my hand down my thigh.

I'm still seated on the bed when James comes out of the bathroom, his waist wrapped with a towel. He looks down at me, gazing. He's gazing, and though there's no smile yet on his lips, I see it in his eyes, beginning. He lifts my hand to his mouth, and more than kissing my knuckles, he nibbles each one. Lowering to a squat, he brings both of his hands to my face, holding like I'm some kind of sea glass that might break. He looks into my eyes like they're some new color of sea glass the world's never seen before. His smile is all the way there on his lips now, and meeting mine.

Lips parting, our heads tilt, our tongues touch, and when I inhale it's James.

Taking his arms, I pull him down on top of me. A hand behind my back, he lifts me higher up on the bed, my towel falling a little, my head landing on the pillow. He kisses me with a pressure that pushes my head deeper into the pillow. And I want more. More pressure. More pushing.

He pulls back instead, hovering over me. "Are you comfortable?"

_Comfortable?_ My head is oscillating like a fan, my heart jack-hammering, my skin practically reaching up for him to touch it. My hair feels like it's standing on end. And my fingertips ache to feel him, so I do. I sweep them up his arms to his shoulders, to his neck. I try to pull him back to my lips, but he resists. He tugs at the tucked-in edge of my towel.

"Can I?"

I nod. With one arm holding his weight off me, he opens the towel.

Even with fingers a little calloused from construction work, his touch is so light it's like cotton. He brushes over one breast, then the other. His fingers wisp up to my throat, and then down, gliding over that spot in the lowest part of my stomach I just can't stand and I'm arching and smiling and laughing a little at the tickle. He laughs too and kisses me, a smile-kiss with hushed love following.

His fingers trail up my thigh and don't stop until they're right between my legs, hesitant at first, barely touching. His eyes are on mine. I push my hips against his fingers and they start to move. Circling, circling.

Pressing.

Again, again.

His lips glide over my body, a straight line down, down.

Lower.

Lower his lips go, landing on the tickle of my stomach that made me laugh before. His kiss there doesn't make me laugh. His lips move all over. The inside of my elbow and my wrist. The inside of my ankle and the outside of my ankle. He kisses the spot where my toes meet my foot. He kisses my foot. And all the way up my leg. He lifts my leg up to kiss the back of my knee. Up the inside of my thigh.

His lips at my inner thigh and I squirm. He moves my leg over his shoulder, and my squirming stops. I hold my breath, my heart racing, but my body is stone still.

Mouth traveling up one thigh, fingers up the other, joining in the middle.

I'm no longer still. My chest rises with my breath, my neck arching.

His tongue.

"James... oh g-" I cover my eyes with my arm. I can't believe what he's doing to me.

He keeps it going. Tongue and fingers. Licks and circles and in and out and flicks, and mouth. I can't keep my arm where it is. I reach back for the headboard and press against it. I push. I push myself even closer to James' mouth. I'm trying so hard not to let out all the noises that want to come from me. I try to swallow them, but that doesn't work. They come from my throat.

More of them. More sounds. A gasp, a moan.

His mouth inches up my stomach, slow, slow. Between my breasts, over my throat to find my lips.

"James," I whisper. I turn my head to the side, burying myself in pillow. I press my hips into him. Wanting.

Our hands meet at the edge of his towel. We both pull and it's off.

My fingers caress up and down, lightly up and down.

He lets out a long-held breath, and then I close my fist around him as my hand continues the rhythm.

"Like this?"

His laugh is only a breath and I pull my hand away.

"Just like that, Victoria," he says, with hardly any voice at all, catching my hand and placing it back where it was. I meet him with a touch exactly as before. "I only laughed because you were perfect. You didn't have to-" a pause for a gasp "-ask."

He falls to his back, but doesn't let me continue for long. He stills my hand, his inhale sharp. "You have to…" his voice strained "…I can't... Hang on a second. Hang on." He turns his face into my chest, taking a couple of deep breaths.

"Wait," he says, even though I'm not doing anything.

He lifts his head and meets my eyes again. He kisses me deep, pushing his body against mine, pushing me onto my back.

I kiss down his throat and to his chest. Scooting lower underneath him, as he holds himself above me, I kiss all the way down to his hip, feel him hard against my shoulder.

"Victoria," he breathes. "Victoria." Balancing himself on a knee, he takes my arms and guides me back up until we're face to face again. "I've gotta make this last for you."

When my mouth finds his, his hips fall between my legs, a hand on my thigh. Caressing and then holding. Holding. Fingers squeezing into skin.

Naked bodies against each other, his and mine. He's warming me, heating me, melting me.

"James." His name has never felt so right. It's breath, a truth. It's mine.

And he's so quiet now, not a sound but his breathing. Heavy breathing.

He guides himself inside me, moving, lifting, pushing. Shallow breath after shallow breath.

I close my eyes before the tears come. He kisses the corners of my eyelids and the corners of my mouth and the corners of my ears.

In my ear he says, "I've wanted you for so many years."

My hands around his back steady myself. I raise my bent legs.

My eyes won't open again. Not until the end, the very end.

My moans get louder, James presses deeper, faster. Hips against hips, stomach against stomach, thighs against thighs.

My hands slip up and down his back.

There's a burst, like the sun is inside me. Like nothing. Like everything. And it doesn't stop.

He groans after me. Right against my throat. And again. And again. And another groan.

And then he drops, starting to pull away too soon.

"Don't go," I tell him, my arms wrapping him tight. "Stay."

We're both out of breath.

He rests his head against my shoulder, his exhales releasing in short rasps.

My fingers find his hair. "This is the special thing," I tell him.

"You're the special thing," he tells me, his arms wrapping me up tight.

We sink into sleep together. Him on top of me.

Until I wake up laughing and kicking. "Move over!" I say. "You're all sticky."

He scoots, also laughing, but quieter. "Why me? It's both of us." His voice, so deep. He pulls all of my sticky body in close. Kisses my sticky shoulder. "I love you sticky."

"I love you sticky, too." I turn toward him and put my hand on his face. "James?"

"Yeah?"

"I really do love you. It's like you've swooped all around my heart and tied a knot so tight it hurts and sometimes I can't breathe. It hurts, how much I love you." My hand has come automatically to my chest.

Even in this dark I can see his eyes glistening. He has tears and this tells me so much more than words ever can, like his smiling kisses. I see the truth.

"I know that feeling," he says, his voice gravelly and unsteady, his hand taking mine. "I feel it, too. For you. But I think you should love me a little less so it doesn't hurt."

"Can't."

He sighs. "I know." He kisses me. He smiles. "I know."

In the morning I wake to James running his hand down my side, over my butt and back up to my waist where he gathers me closer. His skin is all over behind me and it feels like it fits, like it belongs there, always. I turn to face him. His eyes are closed while his closed lips grin.

James had fallen asleep smiling and now he wakes up smiling. Seeing him this happy almost brings tears to my eyes. His happiness is because of me. I kiss his smile. I kiss his eyes open.

He moves hair from my face and holds on to some of it.

"Hi, beautiful Red," he says.

"Hi, beautiful boy."

He traces a line down my cheek. "Your face matches my heart."

I can feel the way my smile pushes at my cheeks. "Your heart looks like a girl?"

He takes my hand and kisses it, and then touches my smile. "No, my heart looks like this."

I bite his finger; he doesn't move it. "Are you trying to poetry me?"

"Is it working?"

"Yes. And I think it's our hearts that match."

He pulls me on top of him, heartbeat against heartbeat, both of his arms around me, squeezing. "You were always better at the poetry than me."

He nuzzles my neck. "My beautiful, poetic Victoria." He kisses me. "You're a poem," he says. "My poem."


	31. Jetsam

**In the Debris**

**Jetsam**

**Victoria**

The tug at my heart I'm familiar with. But the pull everywhere else as I slice into my blueberry muffin is all new. Tingles play a game of hide-and-seek at the bottom of my stomach, before dispersing like a blown dandelion all over my insides. I feel them at the tips of my breasts and between my legs. As I spread butter through blueberries and cake, I cross one thigh over the other, kneeing the tablecloth on my way. My eyes meet his across the table. He's not even touching me, but I can still feel his fingers.

I feel them just as I did this morning, tangled up with him on the bed. That bed, I'd glanced at it one last time before I shut the hotel room door—sheets barely on the bed, part of the mattress pad showing. We had done that, made the bed look like that.

I shift in my seat, my eyes glazing to an almost blur of James. He's staring back and it's as if he can see right through my clothes; maybe everyone in the restaurant can. I put my knife down and tighten my sweater around me.

"Cold?" he asks.

"The opposite," I say, the words barely making it out of my chest.

"You okay?"

I take a deep breath and I whisper. "Don't you feel it?"

"Feel what?" he asks, but the smile on his lips is different from his other smile. This one makes his eyes squint in a way that tells me he understands exactly what I mean, in a way that's telling me his want matches mine.

"How are we going to get through breakfast?"

Under the table, his shoe touches mine. "One bite at a time."

He reaches across for my hand and I give it to him. His thumb runs back and forth over my knuckles as he leans in and in a low voice says, "You want me to touch you?"

My chest, the back of my neck, my scalp all rise at his words. I squeeze his hand and close my eyes. "Don't."

"Don't touch you?"

"Don't talk like that. Right now."

"Don't tell you where I want to touch you? My favorite part of your body?" With a tug on my hand, I can feel him lean closer. "The part that lets me in."

"James..."

His hand lets go of mine and I open my eyes. He's sitting back in his chair again, smiling big and teasing. "Your heart, Beautiful. Your heart."

"Why do you torture me with your words?"

"The same reason you torture me with your eyes."

Early this morning in the bathroom I'd checked the mirror. I don't know what I expected to see. Beauty? Radiating James-happiness? I saw a girl who looked like she hadn't had much sleep in the last few days, which was true. But where was the other truth?

I looked closer, my tired eyes to hers. Disheveled hair.

"Looks are so deceiving," I told my reflection.

I added water to my hair to make the curls spring to life. I applied some concealer under my eyes, eyeshadow and eyeliner, some mascara and lipstick. And some blush. That was better. The girl in the mirror smiled. Now she looked closer to how I felt. I blew her a kiss and walked out, back to the bed where James was flat on his stomach sleeping again. I climbed on his back and kissed between his shoulder blades up to the nape of his neck, and found his ear to nibble on. He sighed.

.

We take off after breakfast—the long road to Oregon. We want to try to get to that same town we'd stopped in on our way here. We know the Thai place will likely be closed before we get there, but hopefully, we can get into the same hotel.

"It'll be like an anniversary," I say as I accelerate out of the parking lot. When we left the restaurant, I had dug the keys out of James' pocket, telling him that I wanted to drive along the coast.

"A three day anniversary?"

"Why not? I say forget about convention. Every day will be our anniversary. Eventually we'll celebrate our nine-millionth anniversary. I bet nobody else can say that."

"Um, Victoria?" His hand massages my shoulder. "That'll make us about twenty-five _thousand_ years old."

I start laughing. "Well not many people can say that either, can they?"

It turns out we were right about arriving too late for dinner at the Thai restaurant. We have to go to an all-night market where we pick out bagel dogs and nachos.

We do get to the same hotel, though, and while the manager gives us a skeptical look when we request our own room number, he still fishes the key out for us and hands it over.

We make a mess of the little table in the retro room, and leave the leftover food and garbage there while we brush our breath clean.

I drop my jeans on the chair, followed by my shirt, and slip under the covers in only my bra and panties. I'd take those off, too, but I want James to do it.

I'm sitting up, the sheet over my legs, staring at the blank TV screen across from me, deep in thoughts of James and the colors of sunsets. They're both the same thing to me. James joins me in bed, playing with the ends of my hair. Fingers down my spine make me shiver.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"Just thinking."

"About what?"

"You."

"Good or bad?" He kisses my back, and goosebumps travel my arms.

"Let's put it this way..." I turn to him. His bare chest distracts me for a second. "If I were to write a poem right now it would be about you and sunsets."

He pulls me over his lap, kissing at my smile, fingers pressing into my hips. "Poetry? Happy poetry?"

I nod.

"Tell me some of it. Tell me something." His lips move to my cheek, across to my ear. I try to think. He's making it extra hard by pecking, sometimes a little bit of tongue, and sometimes a nibble in different places. He's on my shoulder when I just have to stop him.

"I can't think when you do that."

His lips stop, but his fingers don't. They caress up and down my arm, around my shoulder and back again, over and over.

"Okay, okay." I take his fingers off me and hold on to them. "Ready?"

I kiss his lips before he answers.

"It's water drops on naked skin." I weave my fingers with his. "A silver skeleton key dangling over a heart. It's a twirl that you come out of dizzy. It's the aquamarine of the ocean, the orange of the sun, the white of lace. It's the circle of arms when you need them and even when you don't. It's a thousand hearts made of silk. It's the feeling of two pairs of lips the second before they touch. It's messy hair and half-closed eyes." I sweep my hand through his hair, and his eyes close. "It's fingers trailing over a hip. It's the tiny world in the huge palm of your hand. It's under your skin and it grows and grows and grows in the soil of your blood."

"What is?"

"You." I lay kisses down his neck, down his chest, and down, down, down. Lower.

His stomach contracts when I kiss there and I smile.

Lower.

I push at his boxers and he takes the hint, getting them off for me. Kissing a line across the very bottom of his abdomen, I take him into my hand. His inhale is deep and I don't hear it come out.

I give a slow lick up to the tip. I lick down. Fingers close on my shoulder.

I watch what I'm doing for a second. I part my lips. I hesitate. I bow my head, closing my mouth around him. His hips move with me and then still. He's out of my mouth. He's back in again. He says my name.

His hands move to my hair, and then they're on my shoulders again. In my hair once more, they grasp. They stay.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

Clutching her coat sleeves, I pull her through the door and to my chest. With a hand on her jaw, I lift her face to my lips. "You're back."

"Are you sure?" She smiles and kisses me.

"Not really."

She'd gone home to check in with her parents, spend part of Sunday with them so she could come back for dinner tonight.

It's safe. My dad isn't here. Esme might be around or might not, but I assume it'll just be the three of us—Max, Isabella, and me.

I take her to my room.

Jane cleaned it up earlier, kicking me out when she vacuumed. The bed is all nice and neat when Isabella sinks into it, when I lean down to kiss her, urging her to lie back. We end up sideways across the bed, facing each other.

"Last night was crazy," she says, a finger trailing along my two-day old stubble.

"The present in my bed?"

"Before that."

I knew what she'd meant, but I had to give it a try.

"But you were great, you know?" I move hair from her face.

"I know." She smiles.

"I mean, if you weren't you, that thing with Heidi could've been way worse."

"Your dad's friends with her family?"

I hesitate for maybe a second too long.

"Edward? Did you hear me?"

"Not really friends. Her dad works with my dad. A surgeon, too."

"And when you were dating her-" she pauses when I shake my head. "Okay then, sleeping with her..."

I close my eyes, should've just let her call it dating.

"If it went on for so long, your dad must've known about it, right?"

I nod, wondering where she's going with this.

"So, he knew you weren't seeing her anymore and haven't been for a long time. But he had them sit at your table because-"

I put a finger on her lips. "Don't think about that. My dad has delusions. He's crazy. Forget about him."

I roll to my back, bringing her with me. I kiss the top of her head. It isn't Heidi who's bothering her, it's my dad.

She lifts up, her arm on my chest, her fingers tracing the neckline of my shirt. "Maybe I should... kind of, like, try to get to know your dad a little. Or get him to know me. He can't hate me our whole lives, can he?"

"Our whole lives?"

Her cheeks turn a light pink I haven't seen in a long time.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah. You mean our whole lives." I pull her to my lips and she lets me distract both of us with kisses, but I know I can't avoid her question. She won't let me. I pull back. "Bella, after what he said to you I just want to keep him away from you. He says things to me that just - and I don't want him to do that to you."

"So what are you planning with me and him then?"

"After graduation, I'll move out."

"With the money you make at the bookstore? And what about college?"

"I told you, I'm staying in Washington. Let's talk about this later." The truth is, she's right. I have no idea what money I'd move out with. I'd never had to think about it before. Moving out would've been as simple as finding a place and packing up. "We don't have to figure it all out this second, do we?"

She doesn't answer.

I sit up. "I'm thirsty. Do you want something to drink?"

She just nods. I kiss her nose and head downstairs.

My face is in the fridge when I hear Max's voice over the intercom. "Your sad girlfriend's all alone up here."

I laugh and push the speak button. "I'm getting her a drink, and she knows I'll be right back, bud. Thanks for worrying."

"You're too slow," he says. And then: "Bring me a Coke." He leaves the speaker button on and I can hear him talking to Isabella.

Pulling out a third soda, I close the refrigerator.

"I'm not sad," Isabella says.

"You seem sad."

"I guess because my grandma's kind of sick and I'm going to see her in two days."

"And you'll miss my brother?"

"Yeah, that, too. Definitely that."

That makes me smile and I'm about to remind Max to shut the speaker off, but his next question interests me.

"Do you like it better when he lives out there or in here?"

I hear some kind of rustling around, and I listen closer trying to hear past it to her voice.

"I don't know. Maybe he feels more like part of the family in here." It's just like her to turn the question around, not answering which she likes better, but which I might like better.

"He doesn't want to be part of our family."

"Everyone wants to be part of a family. Which do you like better? When he's out there or in here?"

"Here," he says. "Even if it's just an experiment."

"Experiment?"

_Oh shit, oh fuck. No. no. no_. I leave the drinks and run up the stairs, taking two or several at a time. I'm flying. My throat's in my stomach, in my knees.

One step through the door and I know she knows. The look on her face, lips turned down. Her arms folded across her chest.

"Get out, Max." I go to the intercom, slam it off.

He leaves without even questioning why. I don't know how he knew, and he has no idea what he's done, but I can't bother myself with his feelings right this second.

"This is an experiment?" Isabella says. "This thing about the money?"

I walk toward her and away. I want to ask her what he told her. Maybe it wasn't very much. But, no, I have to come clean. I sit next to her on the bed, weighing what I'm about to say.

"You have to talk to me. This. This can't be one of those times when you shut down. That won't work this time."

"When do I shut down?"

"When you do. Don't change the subject."

I pick up her hand and explain it to her the best way I can. I hate to have to point out the difference between our families. I tell her about my argument with my dad, about his love or money experiment. I don't tell her about how my dad thinks my mom was only after money**—**I still don't even really believe that, not completely. And I keep Isabella's name out of it entirely.

"So," I say, "he wants me - he wants me to prove I wouldn't take money over love."

It surprises me when she doesn't seem mad, her hand still in mine. I rub over her fingers. I want to kiss her. I lean forward but she stops me, a hand on my chest as she arches away. Her other hand slips from mine.

"He took all your money away, for that? I don't get it. To prove you would choose love over money. Because he thinks you wouldn't?"

"He doesn't think anyone would if they had the choice."

"But why do you need to prove anything? I mean, you have money, so..." Her eyebrows tighten up. "You're not telling me something."

"Bella, listen." I put my hand on her face. "We were arguing. He told me he thought my mom only married him for money." I cringe. "I didn't believe him. I told him she wouldn't do that."

"And?"

"And... in order to make me believe him, I guess, he wanted me to know what it was like without money, to see if I would do what he says she did."

I search her face. She still looks a little confused, but not mad.

Her eyes fix on the glass doors at the balcony. "I need a second." She grabs her coat and starts outside. "Wait here." She puts her hand out toward me in a cautionary way, like I'm some wild animal to fend off. Don't make any sudden movements. He might attack. "You just wait here."

She stays outside for a long time. Sitting on the bed, I try not to watch her but I can't help it. And eventually I don't try to stop myself. She's facing the night as it grows darker by the minute, leaning against the railing. I go outside and put my arms around her from behind.

"Are you okay?" I ask it hushed in her ear.

"Why would it matter so much to him that you believe your mother was after money? I mean, after what happened to her, that just seems like... so hurtful. Whether she was or wasn't. Why is it so important for him to prove it's true?"

I hold her tighter, not knowing what to say. I could tell her for the thousandth time that he's an asshole, but she knows that.

"I think I have it figured out." She turns toward me. "Something you're not telling me. He took the money away because of me."

"No. Because of me."

"Because of you being with _me_."

There's got to be something right I can say, but whatever it is, it isn't coming out of my mouth. I shake my head at her.

"You're not the experiment, are you? I am." Her face falls, her lips tighten, the bottom one shaking the slightest bit.

"No." I say it sharp, like I mean it. Like it's true.

"I'm not stupid. What if you were with someone else? Like Heidi. If you were with her this would all be different, wouldn't it?"

My eyes close for a second.

"But it isn't different. The reason for this is because you're with me. The garbage, right?"

"No. The love. You're the love."

"Edward, I'm glad you chose me over money. I mean, that's a relief, but... This experiment is the stupidest thing I've ever heard!"

And there it is. The anger I expected. I'm surprised it took so long.

She says she has to go and heads inside. I follow, and so does the wind. I don't stop to slide the door closed.

"But you'll be back? Before Florida?"

She's on the other side of my bed, eyes cast down.

"Bella?"

When she looks up, there are tears.

"No." I go to her fast. "Bella… no."

"I can't be this."

"Be what?"

"An experiment. And I think I'm making things worse with you and the only parent you have left."

"He's not a parent."

"He's your dad, Edward. He's family. You need him. I'm just a girl."

"Don't - Don't say that! You mean more to me than he does. I need _you_." I don't want to see it when she shakes her head. "Yes, I do." I reach for her hand, the touch of her fingers, the feel of her skin. "I need you."

Her fingers kind of grip mine, nails digging, and I grip back. "I need you, too. But not this way. This is so wrong." She starts to pull her hand away from mine, but I take her wrist. I bring her hand to my mouth.

"Don't go."

Her hand is gone. She's reaching up, fingers in my hair, and simultaneously tears spill down her cheeks. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"No, no, no, no…" I whisper one "no" on top of the next, stacking them into a tower as I cup her face, kissing her tears. "This is why. Right here. This is why. The tears, Bella." I rest our foreheads together.

She pulls back, tears racing. "Why did you agree to it? Why did you turn me into this?"

My brain tries to grasp this question. I've turned her into this? I know there's some way to answer. But how?

"I - I'm- " inarticulate. My eyes water up, too. It's guilt; it's shame; it's thinking she's terrifyingly close to walking out my door. I have to say something right. Something right.

"Why didn't you give me a choice?" She wipes her face with both hands.

"Bella..." I had never thought about it that way. I always thought I had no choice, but I never thought about the fact that I was taking a choice away from her. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"What would you have said? If I'd come to you and said that my father had given me the ultimatum of love or money, what would you have said?"

"You didn't give me the chance to think about that, did you?"

She starts to go again but I can't let her. I take her hand and bring it to my chest. "We can't be over."

"No." It's a whisper. "But you're being punished for being with me, and when we break up, you get rewarded. And that hurts. It hurts so much." She's touching her chest like that's where it hurts. "You work this out with your dad, okay? You make it stop." Tears are still streaming and she's trying to wriggle her hand from mine.

"I already know I can't work things out with him. He doesn't care. He never has."

"Just end the experiment. If you give up the money on your own, whatever, but not because of me." Her palm meets my chest and presses into me a couple times. "Not using me. No. No." Her head falls to her hand on my chest with a sob.

I hold her head there, bringing my other arm around to hug her tight. I knew this would hurt her, but I never knew how much.

I take her arms and move her upright so she's looking at me. "What if I can't end it with him?" I know I can't. I want her to give me some hope.

"You have to." She shakes her head. "You just have to. You'll have time. While I'm away. To get things with your dad... regular."

_Regular?_ I don't even know what regular is. Does she mean like her and Charlie? Because that's never going to happen for my father and me.

I pull back from her. "Don't you think I tried to stop this at first? He won't listen to me! And then what? I'm supposed to let you go over this? And he wins? You said you were in deep." I take another step away from her, glaring. "I'm fucking drowning in you, Bella. I thought you were just as deep as me! We talked about this!"

"Was this it? Was this thing with your dad why we had that talk? That talk about how deep? Way back then?"

I say nothing. I can't deny that.

She nods. "You wanted to make sure I was in deep. That you could trust me. What if I said I didn't know, or not yet? Then where would we be? We'd be done and you'd have your money." Her voice goes softer with her next words but they sting worse than anything else she's said before. "But I did tell you how deep I was, and this was going on the whole time. Was it stupid to believe I was getting the new and improved Edward Cullen?"

"Don't say that, Bella. You know me. You know how I feel about you. I haven't been holding back or lying about my feelings. I did this for you. I gave it all up. For you."

"I never asked you to!"

"But my dad did. And I chose you. Because I can't lose you."

"But you'll turn me into an experiment without telling me? I had no choice in this!"

I sink to the bed, feet firm on the floor, arms on my knees.

She just stands there not saying anything.

"I was wrong." I look up at her. "But you don't care about money, right? So what does it matter what I decide to do? Whether I decide to let it go for you?"

"You don't get it."

"Then _make_ me get it."

"You just said it. You're giving it up for me. That's the point. I saw your reaction when you found out he froze your accounts, or whatever he did. You said you were humiliated." Her eyes widen, they dart around the room. I sit up straighter. What is she thinking? "That's why you threw your cards at me that time. Like, 'I gave them up for you, so here, take 'em.'" She mimes tossing the cards.

"No." I stand fast and hold her shoulders. She takes a breath, lips trembling, chin quivering. It stabs at my heart. "No. Bella..." I push hair back from her face and hold her head, looking into her eyes. "I don't want his money. I want you."

"Listen to me." She starts talking slow like I'm a kid who can't understand adult speak. "You gave up your money to be with me. You're being forced to prove some point. Because of me. That's not who I want to be. Why can't you understand that I can't be that? I'm not your father's device, Edward!"

I hold her face tighter. "Don't break up with me over this. It won't fix anything. You think it will, but it won't."

Her hand wraps around my wrist. "You'll work it out with your dad."

I let go of her. "No, I won't. My dad isn't going to change. Just accept that! Don't walk away from what we have. What we have should not be walked away from."

"What do we have anymore, Edward? Our relationship has become an experiment!"

"Not to me. Only to my dad."

"End it."

"And then we'll be okay?"

"I want us to. I can't think right now. It's too much."

She pulls her coat on. I want to take it from her, hide it, but that's juvenile and she doesn't really need her coat to leave. "We'll talk when I get back from my grandma's."

"Why not before then? We'll talk tomorrow."

She shakes her head. I really wish she'd stop doing that. She reaches for the door.

"Isabella, wait." Maybe if I just keep shouting out "wait" she'll never leave.

"Stay. One more night. Tonight. Stay all night. If we're going to spend some time apart, let's spend one more night together."

She's hesitating. She doesn't want to go. She wants to stay.

I take her fingers. "I've never given my heart to anyone before, and you have it." My thumb rubs her palm. "It's yours. And it's been yours probably since before you wanted it. The whole thing. Thinking about not being with you makes it hard to breathe. Like I'm being choked. You're wrapped around my veins, Bella."

I sound as desperate for her as I am, and I don't care right now. But it seems I'm getting through to her. She's looking at me through tears, but the look on her face has softened. No more eyebrow crease. No more tight lips. She's beautiful. She pulls her jacket off, lets it fall to the floor where I agree it belongs, and puts herself in my arms, reaching up to hug me.

My arms close around her back, and I fall into her, my nose to her shoulder. I inhale deep. Her lavender. It's still there. It's always there. I kiss. I move the kiss up her throat to her lips and she lets me.

And there she is.

She kisses back. My hands are moving on their own, lifting her shirt. It's off and I'm unhooking her bra, and then pushing her pants down as I kiss her breasts, her stomach. My lips find goosebumps, maybe from the cold air blowing through the still-open door. But I'm not stopping now to close it.

Shoes off and then everything else, she's naked and I'm dressed. I lay her on the bed. Hands tugging at my shoulders, rough, she brings me down with her. Tears are streaming her face and I try to kiss them off as she reaches around my back pulling at my shirt, lifting it over my head, before her hands slide down my chest and stomach to unbutton my pants. They're off fast. Skin on skin, everywhere.

I kiss more tears. I taste the salt of them. I lick my lips. I kiss all the way down her body and when I come up again, I'm inside. Her legs wrap around me, her thighs shaking.

Her whole body's shaking with sobs under me. I stop everything. "I can't do it like this," I tell her, and I really can't. I wrap my arms around her back, holding her to me, and bury my face in her neck.

I'm still inside her and other than her sobs, neither of us are moving. I start kissing her face again. "I'm so sorry."

I hold her and wait for her to calm. But the fact that she isn't calming is freaking me the hell out.

"Why are you crying like this? Is it all because of the experiment, or is it because..."

"I don't know. It's everything."

"Everything meaning what, Bella?" My heart is pounding so hard in fear that there's no way she isn't feeling it. Before she answers, I move off of her and put my hand over her heart. Its beat matches the pace of mine and my eyes well up.

"The experiment, you keeping it from me, the possibility of it not ending, the possibility that..." She stops and looks away from me. Wind rattles her hair. I push it down. She continues. "We were just talking about our whole lives together and maybe you weren't that serious, but I think I was and now there's this possibility that..." a sob quakes through her, but she doesn't give in to it "...we might not get that."

I hold her tight again, my head on her shoulder. "Don't, Bella. No. I was serious. I was."

This starts her tears again. They're silent this time.

"I'm sorry my family is so fucked up. I'm sorry I'm so fucked up."

She pushes me off her and sits up, swiping at her face, turning her back to me, her legs over the edge of the bed.

"You're not." She turns to look at me. "You're a good person, Edward." Her hand comes to my shoulder and slides up my neck where she holds on. I'm wondering how I can keep her from letting go. I trap her hand there with mine. "Look at everything you do for Max. And for me, too. But what you're doing, this thing with your father? This game someone has to win and someone else has to lose." Her hand slips away. "And me, the pawn, who gets the guy who loses everything or loses the guy who gets everything. It's horrible." Her face hardens all over again, lips and brows pulled tight. She's up now, getting dressed. I'm scrambling into my pants not knowing what's going to happen next.

"I love you," she says without looking at me. "And I don't - I don't want us to end. But it's so unfair that you just expected me to be a part of this. Without even talking to me about it."

She's all dressed again. My pants are on, but my shirt's still off, and I pull her close. "Don't go."

"I have to." She pushes away, picks up her coat. "I have to." She walks out.

I follow her down to the front door, saying things like, "You can't drive like this," and "Stay one more night," and "We'll just sleep," and "We'll just be close." I'm saying anything I can, anything at all to keep her with me and none of it's working. She keeps walking away. She lifts one leg to adjust the heel of her shoe, then does the same with the other. She sways and I hold her hip to help her balance, but she pushes my hand away.

Before she gets all the way through the door, I take her hand and kiss it. My eyes are closed, my lips on her skin, and I inhale the scent of her hand. There's no lavender there. It's just her. Skin and blood and veins and bone. "I love you. I love you."

Her hand is wriggling from my grasp. I let her go. There's no choice.

I can't look at her. I can no longer watch her walk away from me.

Two minutes ago I was inside her and now she's gone.

On my way up the stairs I start moving faster, running, remembering the moonstone she gave me. It's in my jacket, and I'm sure I put my jacket on my chair but it isn't there. Hand to head, I think. I think. _Where?_

I check my closet. Not there.

I move through the house calling Jane. My call gets louder each time, just like my heartbeat. I'm back downstairs.

"In the kitchen!" she says.

She's stirring something on the stove.

"Did you move my jacket?"

"Your jacket?" Wooden spoon to her lips, she tastes whatever the sauce is.

"My jacket. It was on my chair."

"Your suit jacket? It's at the cleaners." She starts stirring again like anyone cares about the fucking sauce.

"Did you check the pockets?"

"There was nothing in the pockets." She stops stirring and looks at me.

"Did you check them?"

"There was nothing in them."

"Did you _check_ them?"

"I checked them. I always check them."

I rub the back of my neck. "The breast pocket. Did you check that one?"

"I checked every pocket. Did you lose something?"

I close my eyes. "I lost_ every_ fucking thing!"

Back upstairs on my bed, head in my hands, I'm wishing I'd done everything differently even if I don't know what that is, when Max comes in.

"What happened?"

I look up at him, rumpled shirt and hair. He looks just like me at that age. He looks better than me right now. I'm still not even wearing a shirt. "I messed up."

"Is it my fault?"

"No, man. No. It's mine."

He sits at the end of the bed. "Did you break up?"

"I don't know for sure. It looks something like that."

"Is she never coming back?"

"Max." I can't say anything else, and I can't have him ask any questions like that or I'll break down. I'll lose it. I am losing it. I cover my face.

Max puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. This kid. I try to hide my tears.

I think about asking him how he knew, but I don't want him to blame himself, and it doesn't really matter. He lives here. That's how he knew. That's all I need to know.

I don't even have any idea when my dad will be home next. When I try asking Esme the next day, she says he has out of town surgeries until Thursday.

Thursday, it's the day Isabella gets back from Florida. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can get through to my father and end this. Maybe I can tell Isabella on Friday that the experiment is over.

Maybe I can pull her into my chest and she'll stay.


	32. Dregs

**In the Debris**

**Dregs**

**Edward**

I don't have to pump myself up to talk to my father this time. I'm ready. I've been waiting for this for days.

The sun's on its way down when I pull up from work just as I see him closing the front door behind him.

"Dad!" I say, on my way inside.

"Now I'm dad?"

I'd like to dispute that, but I'm not about to get myself off track.

"We need to talk."

He has me follow him over to the bar where he fixes himself a highball, rubbing his face before he pours the liquor. He looks tired.

"Talk," he says, facing me, his glass on the way to his mouth.

I match his posture, straight and tall. "We need to end the experiment."

"You need money?" Even loosening his tie, not making eye contact, he looks smug.

I shake my head. He takes a drink.

"I just - I need it to end."

"She left you."

I rub the base of my palm over my eyebrow. "I don't know. But if this thing doesn't stop..."

"She'll leave you." He nods like he knows everything.

"It isn't about the money. It's about the experiment."

"This experiment is nothing. It's either there is money or there isn't money, and if that's bothersome to her, that isn't my problem."

"She feels like she's the one being tested. And she's right, isn't she?"

"You know what the test is about. You have to understand how enticing money can be when you need it but don't have it. You've got to understand people."

"If I was with Heidi would you still be testing me?"

"It would be unnecessary, wouldn't it? Heidi doesn't need our money."

"Then this is about Isabella and not me. So it ends."

"Tell me if I have this right." He takes a drink. "You want me to give you my money to keep your girlfriend from leaving. You don't see the illogic in that?"

"You're not hearing me. This isn't about the money being gone, it's about _why_ the money is gone. The reason for it. Turning Isabella and our relationship into some twisted game!"

"And you think she's going to tell you the reason she's leaving is because you're out of money? Of course not, she'll make up some excuse. Just as she's done."

Why is he so bullheaded?

I smash my face into my hands. "Listen to me. I love Isabella. I'm not letting it end over this. I love her."

"And you think she loves you while, as soon as the money is taken out of the equation, she leaves. Do you need it spelled out for you? The girl's in it for the money."

"You're wrong. Just admit for once in your life that you can be wrong about something. One thing! This is it. You're wrong!"

He finishes his drink, sets his glass down, removes his tie completely, laying it over the bar, and he sits on the bar stool, looking at me like he's actually contemplating what I said. "If I'm wrong, why is your relationship with this girl in question?"

"You know the answer. I've already explained it."

"Son, trust me on this. It's better you know now than later. Let her go. Good riddance."

"I'm not letting her go over this."

"Then our agreement continues."

"Why are you like this? She doesn't deserve this."

"I want only the best for my sons. I know it's hard right now because you think it's love. You're young. You need to give yourself time to figure out what love is. You'll see what I mean. You'll meet other girls better suited for you. Do you think your mother was the first person I loved?"

"I don't want other girls."

"Well, there's your mistake. Because the girl you want is turning from you, isn't she? I know all about trying to convince yourself it's love. Learn from me. Falling for someone who's only in it for the money eats your life away. You have to be sure about intentions when you date someone beneath you."

"_Beneath me?_ She's not beneath anyone."

"Now we're arguing class? Even she knows she's beneath you."

I stand in front of him, hands jammed into my pocket, staring. Just staring. He holds my gaze the whole time. "You got a lot of people respecting you? Got a lot of people kissing your ass?"

He raises his glass of ice. "Comes with the lifestyle."

"Well, congratulations. Your son, this son, _me_." I point to my chest. "I've lost whatever respect I had for you. You're nothing but the next pile of cash on the counter to me."

I take my jacket and walk out. I hear Max calling me, and I pause for just a second, tell him I'll be back. In the garage I take the Porsche and I just drive. Fast.

I show up at Jasper's. He's surprised to see me; I'm surprised he lets me in.

We pass through the living room, pass the staircase to "the honeymoon suite," to the back of the house into his room. His bed's unmade, his sketchbook open on top, a pencil dropped slantwise across it.

I ignore it all and ask Jasper how he talks to girls, gets them to understand what he wants and agree to it.

"You're asking me for advice? You, with Isabella, need advice from me?"

"I don't want to lose her."

"You're losing her? What, did you mess around on her?"

"Fuck, no!"

Taking a few steps back, he holds up his hands. "Okay, okay, sorry, man. But it's not a total out there question, you know?"

"What do I do?"

"Play her a song. Hell, write her one."

I shake my head. "I can't fix this with a song. I need her to hear me, to understand me, and to—I don't know—agree with me."

"You want to manipulate her." He raises his eyebrows.

I bring my hand to my head as if I have a headache. _Is that what I want?_

"No. God."

"Okay, look, be straight with her. Tell her straight up, whatever it is. Just like, whip it out, you know? But bring on the charm, man. Girls like charm."

"Be straight, but lace it with fucking charm?" This was a bad idea. Isabella isn't a girl I'm trying to get into bed for a night. I'm shaking my head, and Jasper starts shaking his back at me.

"What?" he says.

"You're clueless."

He smiles. "Yeah? So are you. How 'bout a sandwich? Moms got pastrami."

On the way to the kitchen he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "You ever think maybe _you _should stop and listen to _her_?"

I just look at him.

"Hey, sometimes that's what I do. I shut up and listen. Girls want to be heard. If I don't know anything else about them, I know that."

.

Isabella isn't at school on Friday and I haven't heard from her. I've checked my phone about a zillion times to see if I've missed any calls.

None.

She's home by now. Victoria lets me know she's called her on the house phone and that Charlie told her Isabella's sick.

I haven't seen her in almost a week. After school I drive to her house. Her mom sort of greets me and sort of doesn't. There's no eye contact, no warm smile. She follows me up to Isabella's room and cuts in front of me to knock on the door.

"Izzy-b? Are you up? Edward's here."

"No." Isabella's voice comes muffled through the door.

"Please, can I go in there?" I ask Renee. "I just want to see that she's okay."

"She said no, Edward." She gives me this tilted head, shoulder shrug look. I think it's like a "too bad for you" look. Knowing her relationship with Isabella, maybe Isabella's told her everything.

I tap a knuckle against the door. "Isabella? Please let me in." I'm talking to her like she's a little kid who I'm trying to coax candy from. "I have your schoolwork." I raise the books in my arm to show her mom, as if they're stuck to me and I'm the only one who can give them to her daughter. "And I have something to tell you… about..." I don't know what to call it in front of her mom, so I stop and just tap my knuckle again. _Let me in. Let me in. _

She says okay, and I enter, closing the door behind me. It's dark in her room, and warm, almost hot. The blinds are closed. It looks like night. A candle flickers by her bed. It doesn't smell like lavender in here. It smells like something else—like the woods.

Isabella turns the lamp on above her candle. She's so pale. Her hair looks like strings of yarn.

"My room's a mess," she says. Those are the first words she says directly to me and they somehow make me feel like we've spent no time apart.

"Are you feeling better?" I'm talking quiet, almost a whisper like I'm trying not to wake her.

She sits up, arranging the pillows behind her back. "Yeah. I think it's on the way out. Just taking it easy."

There's some dark green drink on her nightstand that looks like sewage or swamp slime. She picks it up. "Herbs," she says. I should've known.

"I missed you."

"Me too."

I see the footstool she told me about in the corner of the room and point it out. "You got it?"

"Yeah. Haven't even been able to give it a spin yet."

I can't picture her spinning on it. A week ago I could've pictured it, but not now.

"How's your grandma?"

"She's lost a lot of her memory. Like she can remember things from years and years ago but she can't remember things from five days ago. She kept calling me Renee." I don't know what to say. I spin the stool with my foot. "She's moving to an assisted living home, and my grandpa's moving with her. That's why I got the stool. No room for everything where they're going."

I set the books on her desk and pick up her phone. It's dead. I hold it up to her. "When was the last time you used this?"

"Before Florida."

I search the surface of the desk. "Where's your…" I open the top drawer. "Where's your-"

"The other drawer. The one on the right."

I find it and plug her phone in for her. "You've got about a hundred messages from me. Just ignore 'em." I go sit next to her on the bed. I put my hand on her face. She's warm and sweaty.

"Do you want the window open?"

She shakes her head and shivers. "Too cold."

"What's wrong with you?"

"The flu. So don't get too close. They think I caught it on the plane. I've been ordered to drink lots of fluids and get plenty of rest."

She starts to bring her hand to my leg, but stops herself. I wish she wouldn't. I catch her hand and play with her fingers. I need skin contact. I breathe out when she doesn't pull away.

"So, what's going on? Is it over?"

I think maybe right now isn't the best time to tell her. I'm regretting bringing it up, except for the fact that it got me in here.

"Let's talk about that later."

"Did you talk to your dad?"

"I tried," I say, looking down at my fingertips balancing on hers.

"And?"

"Later."

She kind of pinches my index finger. I like the pull. "Did you end it?"

I take a breath, my voice coming out strained. "I can't." There will never be a good time for this conversation.

"Why?"

"Because he's a fucked up bastard of a person."

She doesn't answer to that. She coughs and then takes a drink of that disgusting green slime.

"Is that helping?"

She shrugs. "Maybe I don't believe in it enough."

"Bella, I want things to go back to how they were with us. We're letting my dad have too much power."

"It's always going to be me or the money?"

My stomach feels empty, like I haven't eaten in weeks. She isn't looking at me and I can't take it. I need her eyes. I move my head to find them but she shifts her eyes again.

"I don't know about always," I say. "Look at me."

She does. I see tears. There's a tightening in my jaw, and straining in my eyes.

"My dad took me to the doctor. We ran into your dad. He was really nice. He said they should get together some time since 'our children are dating.' Those words, exactly."

"When was this?"

"Today. Earlier."

My eyes fix on her bed comforter. He's playing something. I think about my conversation with him. He's convinced she's after money. He called her beneath me. But he tries to set up a get-together?

"What?" she asks.

"He's got - I don't know what he's up to."

"He wants us to end. He doesn't want you with someone like me."

I chance a look at her face again. Tears are on her cheeks. She's nodding her head and I have no idea what that means.

"We won't give him what he wants. I give up the money. We stay together."

"My mom says we have to be careful. _I_ have to be careful."

"You told your parents. They hate me now?"

"I only told my mom. She doesn't hate you, but... She says if we continue like this, you'll resent me someday."

"I couldn't."

"Are you sure?"

"I couldn't."

"You threw your cards at me. You were showing me your empty wallet and you took out your cards and threw them in my lap. You could've thrown them anywhere. On the floor. Behind you. Out the window. You threw them at_ me_."

"I didn't mean-"

"But you did. Because in the end, you gave it up for me."

We look at each other in silence. Is there no way out of this?

"What if there was no me?"

"What are you talking about?"

"If I take myself out, the option of me out, then what? Would you give up the money then?"

All I do is stare. I can't answer. What I want to tell her is a lie and she knows me too well.

Her eyes close first and then her hand covers them, and I swallow.

"And you'll find someone else. Someone who's good enough?"

"No, don't say that." The words race out. "You're better than me. What you come from is better than what I come from."

"But I don't feel that way, Edward. Not under this experiment. With your dad doing this to us... and all because of me..." She pauses. She swallows. "It makes me feel not good enough._ Less than. _And if you believe something hard enough, long enough… remember?"

I remember. She said it makes it true.

"Bella." It's a whisper. "You should never feel like that. You're all there is." I bring her hand to my lips, kiss the back of it. "There's nothing else. You're it." I turn her hand and kiss her palm, holding it there. And with her skin clammy against my lips, I think about what my dad's done. Not to me. To her. Degrading her. Calling her garbage. Testing her. Not allowing her to be my date at the benefit so that Heidi could end up at our table. Insisting she's after money. Saying she's beneath us, and that she knows it. And whatever he's up to now, with her family.

He's not going to stop.

Chills travel my arms and I'm sweating.

I think of what Charlie said to me that one time about Isabella not being the kind of person you want to hurt. I knew he was right then. I still know he's right. I remember the times she's let me cry with her arms around me when I'd wake up from a dream. How that first time led me to knowing what Max needed. I remember all the times she's pushed me to talk about things I needed to, and all the times she stopped pushing when she knew it was getting too hard for me. The only reason I was able to keep my father's experiment from her for so long was because she never pushed me for answers. I remember how she cares about Max like he's her own brother; how she's put aside my father degrading her in the past to be with me; how she carried that article with her, back when we were just friends.

I pull my lips into my mouth. My eyes fill.

How long can she go on feeling not good enough before it's more than she can take? Or am I just supposed to expect her to get used to feeling that way? This experiment, being about her, it doesn't prove anything. It demeans her. Every day. If I could get Max away from our father I'd do it in a second, so why shouldn't I do the same for Isabella? If I stand by, or worse, pressure her into staying with me, and let her continue to get hurt by my family, what does that make me?

It makes me no better.

She hasn't done anything to deserve this. The only thing she did wrong was fall in love with someone from the wrong family.

She has parents who know what family means, who eat dinner together, who vacation together. They support each other.

I can't pull her any farther down into my world. There was one thing my father was right about. Only he had the reason wrong.

"Edward?"

I look at her, messy hair around her shoulders, tears in her eyes, not spilling, not yet, but ready. And the lips, a small smile, just enough to make it look like the tears won't win after all.

"Hey, um..." I push my hand into her hair. "I think..." My breath shakes, my heart thumping as I admit to myself what I'm doing here. I'm letting her go. I swallow the thought and it hurts going down. Tears fall from my face to her shirt. My heart is breaking right in front of her. "I think I have to let you go."

She's shaking her head, tears falling fast.

"I get that now."

My father's done it. He's won. He isn't right. Love is worth more than money, but he's still won. I can't ask her to stay with me if staying with me means she'll feel anything less than who she is. I can't do that to her.

"I won't let him hurt you anymore."

"Edw-" her voice breaks, and I reach to wipe her tears. She wraps her hand around my wrist and I realize this is a gesture she does a lot. Even as my mind races, I try to focus on her touch.

"Maybe someday... he'll change his mind. Maybe if you keep trying."

"He doesn't listen to me. He doesn't even hear what I'm saying, Bella."

"My mom says that sometimes people seem like they're not hearing you, but they are. Like, later." She sniffs. "When they think about it. Like hindsight. Maybe..." She stops, tears dropping from her chin. I can't bring myself to tell her that I already know that won't happen.

"Maybe."

I lean forward to kiss her lips. She tries to stop me, fingers to my face, reminding me that she's sick, but I don't care about that. I take her hand from my face, holding it, and I kiss her, and it's soft. I taste whatever that green stuff is, and it's not bad. It's kind of sweet. I don't mind remembering that taste as our last kiss. Her tears are hot on mine. I rest my forehead against hers.

"You've changed my world." As I say this she gasps for a few breaths and I think I should stop, make this easier on her, but if I had trouble knowing what to say before we started dating, I can't seem to stop myself now. "I never knew I could be like this. You showed me. You." I squeeze her hand, maybe too tight. Her knuckles might be white. "I hope I've done something for you, too. Besides hurt you."

She doesn't answer except another gasp of a sob. She leans forward, wrapping her arms around my neck, and I close my arms around her, too, sighing into her hair.

I'm not letting go. I can't.

"You'll always be first," I say, "and you'll always be best." I don't even try to stop the tears. I let them roll as I hold her tight. "Don't forget how much I love you. Promise."

I feel her nodding on my shoulder. I back away a little bit, just so I can see her, but I don't let go.

"And you know that I don't think the way my dad does. You know that, right?"

She nods again, and I can see that she would have a hard time trying to speak. But I need her to. I need her to tell me.

"Bella?" I kiss her wet cheek. "My Bella?" I kiss her forehead. "Tell me?"

"I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" I can't help my scoff. "You think I'm asking for that? Sorry for what?"

"I tried." Her filled up eyes leave mine, and she gasps for breath again, which brings my hand right to her face. I cup her cheek. "I tried not to let your dad affect me. I couldn't. I can't."

"No. I get that now. But tell me the other thing. You know what it is."

Her lower lip quivers. "I love you." I hear her tears in her voice. She sounds tortured. She's said what I was asking to hear but as soon as I hear it, I wish I hadn't.

I'm falling apart. Wrecked.

My eyes close tight. This is not the end, I tell myself. Even if it isn't the truth, I tell myself it's not over. We're not done. Tears fall out when I open my eyes. She's looking right at me. She hasn't looked away. I wipe from the edge of my eyes to the corners, trying to press all the tears back. I drop my hand to her shoulder.

I kiss her once more before I leave. I can't stay any longer and I don't say goodbye. Throwing the door open, I run down the stairs and out of the house.

I close no doors behind me.

I have to figure out what concoction she was drinking. I'll drink it every day that I have to live without her, just to taste her kiss.

In the car I try to see and try to breathe. I turn toward her house. She's in there and I'm out here. I feel like I'm on the other side of the world from her. A heavy breath comes out of me. And just as I know that the silence of death can be deafening, I now know that you can choke on love.

At home, I text my father to tell him he's won, I'm moving back to the pool house and I'm taking my cars back. I apologize to Max for leaving him again, and the kid offers to help me pack up.

I can't stand the disappointment in his face as he's helping, but at the same time I'm proud of him. Sometimes you have to do something you really don't want to do, just for somebody else. He gets it.

"You can come over anytime you want," I say to him. If he does stop coming to see me at night, I'll miss it. Maybe I'll come in to see him. I'll make a point of it on the nights there's no chance of running into my father. "I want you to. It's not mine. It's ours. I just sleep there."

He doesn't answer me. And I won't let there be silence.

"I can't live here, but the pool house is as far as I'm going. Okay?"

"Okay."

I'm dumping the remnants of my top desk drawer into a box when I spot the moonstone. Dropping the drawer, I pick up the stone, turning it over, sliding it through my fingers. I don't think about what finding this means to me. I think about what it would mean to Isabella. She'd see it as some kind of magic. She told me to keep it close to my heart for a love that doesn't stop.

I try to believe it's magic. I slip it into my pocket.

Like the article once did, the moonstone will go everywhere I go.

Later, lying in bed in the pool house I want to give Isabella a call, to say goodnight. I can't do that. I wonder how many times this will happen. How many times will my fingers itch to reach for my phone, only to remind myself I can't make the call. I figure it'll happen a lot, since it's happening again right now.

I don't sleep until the early hours of morning. She's in my head.

The next day as I'm leaving for work, fingers on the moonstone in my pocket, I go to the main house to see if Max needs a ride into town. I find a wad of cash on the counter. I pick it up and count it. But it isn't numbers going through my mind as I sift through the bills. I recall Isabella saying that I was being punished for being with her and when we break up I get rewarded.

I recall telling my father that he's nothing but the next pile of cash.

I pack the bills on the counter like playing cards until they're an even line. If this is my reward, I'm not taking it. If this is my father, I'm leaving it.

I walk out of the kitchen with an empty wallet in my back pocket.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

We're on the brink of March and the bakery shows it. Shamrocks shining green travel the ceiling, crossing in the middle like an X. The cookies are green, too, as are the cupcakes—not just the cupcake frosting, but the cake as well.

There are chocolate gold coins littered under the glass as if dropped by leprechauns. Mr. Alistair even has a leprechaun trap made of twigs in the corner of the store. Kids come in daily to see if he's caught one.

"Keep checking," he tells them, a finger to the side of his pointy nose. "Every time someone walks in is another chance a tiny mischief-maker is hanging on to a pant-leg."

"We'll catch one," he says to me like he believes it.

On Monday it was hard to leave James when he dropped me off at home. He helped bring my suitcase in before hugging and kissing me goodbye on the porch. I loved the way his arms circled me, how his hands moved up and down and around on my back.

"Come home with me," he said into my shoulder. He laughed after because he knew I couldn't.

"I wish."

Inside I found my aunt. I hugged and hugged her, squeezing tight. I rocked her back and forth like she was the girl and I was the aunt.

"I love you, Auntie. Thank you for taking care of me."

"What's gotten into you, Victoria? It's only been four days. You act like it's been months."

I let her go and she asked me about my trip. I gave her the biggest truth I could.

"Me and James finally are."

"Are what?"

"We are. We are. Just that."

With a sigh she started talking about young love, and went on about when she met my uncle. "It was fast with him," she said. "It was the head over heels, can't get enough of each other kind of love. We knew from so early on that we would end up together. We started talking about marriage three months into our relationship."

"Me, too. With James. Except it took us five years to figure it all out, and we haven't even begun to talk about marriage."

She laughs. "Thank God for that. Keep in mind that as fast as Uncle Phil and I fell in love, we were in our thirties. There's plenty of time. Plenty."

As we continued to talk we sat on the sofa eating cold, leftover pizza, which tasted gourmet considering I hadn't had a single bite in hours. When my uncle came home he found us in the living room and said, "Howdy, Little One, how was the trip?"

I said it was fine and went right up to my room to call James.

On my way up I'd heard my aunt tell Mud that I don't like being called Little One anymore and he said, "She doesn't?" and I thought, "Duh!"

James and I talked until after midnight, around the time I fell asleep.

I awoke to his voice, "Victoria?" soft and smooth, like he was lying right beside me and could push my hair back on my forehead while I reached out to tickle his stomach, feeling the way it contracts under my touch.

"I think we should hang up."

"No," I said, forcing my eyes open, as if open-eyes would convince him.

"You're sleeping. I heard you snore."

"I don't snore."

"I heard it."

"Only when I'm really, really tired," I said, yawning.

"Then sleep and we'll talk in the morning face to face when I pick you up for school."

.

Today while scrubbing dried frosting off the counter at work I get a call from Edward.

Tears sting when he tells me he and Isabella are over. Poor Edward, I make him repeat it, thinking I've misheard. And this time he tells me all of it, everything about his dad and Isabella.

It's like I can hear scars in his voice.

"Bella might need you."

_Bella?_

"I'm here for her if she needs me."

"Even if she says she doesn't, she does."

"Okay, Edward. I'm here."

"Thank you."

"Is that because she's beautiful?'

"What?"

"Bella. You call her that because it means beautiful?"

"Oh, um… no. That's just. I mean, yeah, she's beautiful, but that's just what I call her. It's this thing with me and her. I guess I didn't know I said it."

"I'll pretend I never heard it."

"You're incredible, Victoria."

On Friday I let her tell me she needs to be alone. On Saturday, too. But on Sunday I've had enough of that. She forced me out of my isolation once, now it's my turn.

Charlie answers the door and tells me she's in her room. I barge in.

She isn't dressed. In a short, white nightgown, she's sitting on her bed surrounded by photographs.

It's too dark for the middle of the day. I move the curtains, inviting the light in.

I pick a photo up off her bed. It's Edward. I pick up another one. It's Edward, too.

She hands me one. "This is the first one I took of him."

He looks half-way to shocked in it, eyebrows going up, mouth slightly open.

"I didn't even know him. I told him I was going to write 'rude' under the picture as the caption."

I move pictures aside so I can sit on the bed with her.

"Are you okay?"

She shakes her head.

I wrap my arms around her waist and hers wrap my neck, squeezing, squeezing. She clings.

"I go away for a few days and everything falls apart?"

"You should never leave," she says.

"Are you still sick?"

"Not really."

"Do you want me to spend the night?"

"Okay." She's not letting go of me, so I don't let go of her.

"His dad doesn't want me with him. For no reason except money. He never even gave me a chance."

"I know."

"He told you?"

I don't have to answer.

Tears are wetting my shoulder through my shirt.

"It doesn't feel right," she says.

I let her cry until she lets me go. She reaches for the ends of my curls.

"This feels worse than just letting his dad stomp all over me."

"Maybe not in the long run. Being stomped all over leaves bruises."

"I think I should smoke a joint, or a blunt, or a bowl. Whatever you call it. I wish I could write a poem. There's too much, Victoria. Too much inside."

"I know," I say again. I understand how she feels. I've felt it.

I reach into my back pocket and pull out the piece of paper. I hand it to her.

"After I talked to Edward, I went home and wrote this for you."

She sits up, unfolding the paper. "For me?"

"It's about a girl named Isabella, which is a beautiful name, by the way. I thought that even before I liked you. But just because she has your name, that doesn't mean the poem's about you." I smile at her to show her I'm joking. It is about her.

It had taken me a long time to write it. I kept trying to come up with a pretty poem about flowers and meadows and sunshine. About water that flows the right way, that washes over us and cleanses and makes everything sparkle. About rain that will stop on command.

But I couldn't do that. It felt like lies. And if poetry is anything at all, it's truth.

Isabella pushes hair over her shoulder, leans back against her headboard, and I watch her read.

The poem's about a girl who has this boy, tall and dark haired, who's only hers. They have a love that is big enough to reach the stars, and it is a star. And like the stars, their love will go on forever, even if they can't be together for reasons only the two of them understand. And that's special, too, that there's so much only the two of them know. Just the two of them. And all of that, she can lock it away in her heart with a key that's bigger than her, yet smaller than her fingernail.

But this girl, she has another world beyond all that. She has a warm home and two parents who want nothing more than to offer her happiness from their open hands. And she has as many cameras as there are rocks in the creek, and a talent she can soar on. With each picture, she soars higher, higher, higher, and the warm wind wraps around her like the softest quilt made just for her. Every square meticulously sewn, just for her, and all it is is wind. The wind tells her things, teaches her, so that when she looks down at memories below, she can smile at them. She looks all around below her and she sees her life and all it includes. She's taken so many pictures that they start to fall away behind her, and people below, they catch them, and when they look at them, they know they've been touched. All because of this girl who can fly so far above them. She's made people smile, she's made people feel their own hearts within their bodies. She has that power. She's an artist. They all nod in agreement, and way up there in the clouds where the wind holds her tight, she nods, too, and she believes it. And this knowledge brings her back down to earth right on a breeze, and the earth shines for her like a star, and that star is a love. A love for everything that is her and a love that never, ever goes away. Even when she no longer needs it, it never goes away.

"Victoria," she says, sitting forward and hugging me. "I wish I had your talent."

"I wish I had yours. How about you take the pictures, I write the poems?"

"That's the way it is," she says.

"Exactly. It's the way it's supposed to be."

"I love the poem." She pulls back and looks into my eyes. "It sounds like it's about you."

Taking the paper from her I point out the part where the girl nods in agreement. "It's about you. And see, you already acknowledged it." And then I push at her dark, soft, straight hair, and whisper to her another sort of poem, and I only call it a poem because of its truth. "You'll find your way back to each other. You'll find a way."

"How?"

"You know what I learned? Sometimes we never know until the end."

"It is the end, isn't it?"

"I don't mean the end of your relationship. I mean the end of your separation. You'll know when you know."

And then I tell her to get dressed. As she gathers the photos and, along with my poem, puts them into a little wooden box, I throw clothes at her from drawers, pushing satchels of dried lavender out of my way, grabbing whatever I touch: a pair of jeans, a sweater, socks.

"Get your camera, your favorite one, or all of them. We're going to take pictures. You'll take the good ones, I'll take the blurry ones. We'll take pictures of anything and everything. Ants, tree branches, and clouds. Pictures of the wind. That's possible, right?"

I take a chance to look at her and she's smiling and I know it's okay. I text that to Edward, too. It might hurt him, but it will also make him feel so good just to know that she's okay.

When he texts me back and asks me to kiss her for him, I'm reminded she's not the only one I need to be worrying about.

* * *

><p>AN: Okay. Thank you for reading even when it gets tough.

Extra thanks to my beta myimm0rtal for going over this chapter several times with me, and to IReen H for reading two different versions of it, and to thimbles for being everything supportive, as well as dragonfly336, dreaminginnorweigen, moirae. Yeah, so this one wasn't easy.


	33. Haze

**In the Debris**

**Haze**

**Edward**

Sitting on the chair, blank TV screen glaring at me, I don't move to turn it on.

I know it really isn't my heart breaking, that this pain actually spikes from somewhere in my brain. But it sure as hell feels like my heart. I grab at my shirt, kind of pull at it, digging the heel of my hand into my chest as I stare at the screen in front of me, my mind wandering over and through Isabella. Bella.

She was there on the sofa, me on this chair, and we were watching a movie, but my eyes kept being pulled to her direction. I leaned forward, looking at her. She didn't seem to notice so I called her.

"My Bella, come here. Come closer."

She moved to my lap. When she laughed at the next scene, and I didn't, she asked, "Don't you like the movie?"

Moving all of her hair to one side, I planted kisses up and down the back of her neck. Dropping her head, she shifted herself on my lap, and I felt her ass right there. I held her at the hips, moving her against me. I was already hard. I heard her gasp.

She reached back to push her fingers into my hair at my neck, and my hands loved this position. I could move them up under her shirt and they had the best access to her breasts as she arched her back. I grew harder.

"Edward," she said, pulling her shirt over her head. I unfastened her bra, kissing along her back where the straps fell away before she even got the rest of her sentence out. "No pants."

She almost fell to the floor as we struggled to get both our jeans off at the same time while I tried to hold her steady on my lap. I moved my hands around her sides, up along her stomach, refinding her breasts. Her head fell back, her chest rising.

I scooted forward on the chair for better positioning. "Turn around," I told her. She did, facing me now. My hand slipped under her panties and I pushed them down. She got them the rest of the way off and then straddled me on her knees and I wrapped my arms all the way around her. My mouth started doing to her breasts what my fingers were doing moments ago.

She lifted her hips up and forward and against me.

I found her lips, hungry for them, both my hands covering her breasts, and then loosening my palms over her nipples. She pulled from the kiss, gasping, and my lips fell to her throat.

I bent her back as I leaned over to reach for my pants, for my wallet, for a condom.

"Hold on," I said, the words barely scraping past my throat. She didn't stop moving her hips, though, rubbing up against me. She was making me crazy. I dropped the condom somewhere on the chair, picked it up, had a hard time even ripping it open.

Head back against the chair, I handed it to her. "Put it on for me."

Her hand stroked me as she slid the condom on.

I inhaled sharp, lifted her and I was in. Relief finally. I didn't think I'd ever come out.

She moved on top of me, and my arms wrapped her hips, helping her out. I lifted her all the way up off of me and just before I slipped out, I brought her back down. A quick sound came from her I'd never heard before. And she bit her lip.

"Don't." I kissed her. "Don't bite. Let it out, Bella."

I repeated the lifting action, lifted her hips, pulled her down, and then a third time. She bit her lip again.

I reminded her we were in the pool house. Nobody would hear her but me.

"I want to hear it all," I said.

She didn't stop moving and I lost concentration then, could no longer speak. I brought a finger to her lips as the only reminder not to bite I could give her, and my forehead dropped to her collarbone.

I felt her mouth open against my finger and she let her sounds free.

She was rising and falling on me. I felt the burn in my gut but I knew she wasn't as close as I was.

"Bella." It was only a grunt as I tried to warn her that it was nearing the end for me, but there were no more words. I pulled on her thighs, reached around her waist, a hand up her back, and she fell against my arms, changing her position.

I lost myself. I pressed her hips down, closer to me, faster, needing her to finish, before I got too limp, and relief joined the sweat that dripped from my forehead when she reached her high.

She collapsed on me and I slumped against the chair, my arms tight around her. I held her nakedness, felt it all, rubbing, moving my hands all over her soft everything. She was quivering.

"Never get dressed," I said and she laughed. That laugh.

Eventually she got dressed, eventually everything got fucked up, eventually she left.

I pull my boxers up, letting the memory go, and I wander into the bathroom, wash my hands and start the shower.

I avoid my image in the mirror, knowing what I'll see, and wipe my wet face with both hands, pressing hard. I take a deep, reaching breath. Reaching for something inside where Bella used to be all knotted up, wanting to find her there. That feeling. The one that let me know she was mine, that she wanted to be mine.

I crush my hands harder into my face as the memories come, they flash: her ass in tight jeans, her short skirts, her thighs, those boots, the way her hair swings over her shoulder, her shoulder, and then her neck, her sensitive neck. She loved when I touched and kissed her neck, breathed and spoke against it. Saying her name, saying anything. Her sigh, her head tilt. Her smile. Her voice. Her magic. _Her._

I step into the shower and turn it up hot, the way she likes it. I scorch my skin with it.

Love. You can still feel it even if you no longer have it.

**.**

On Sunday night I pull up in front of James' house and sit there in the car for a minute, music going, heat blazing, just staring at the front door.

James had called telling me that if I didn't come over to his house, he was coming to get me. Victoria's orders.

Since when do I follow anyone's orders? Since now, I guess. I shut the engine off and silence hits me like a blast of wind.

Before I knock on the door I decide I'm not going to talk to him about Isabella or my father.

He answers the door and says, "Hey."

I've never been inside his house before. It's smaller than Jasper's.

Not in the mood to deal with any adults, I'm relieved his mom's already in bed. Although, when I think about it, I'm not in the mood to deal with any people at all.

"Got any bud left?" I ask once we're in his room. I can smell it.

He pulls open his desk drawer and rolls a blunt while I try not to think about my mother or Max. I realize I'm shaking my head when he asks me, "What?"

"Nothing."

"Get the window, will ya?"

He offers me a lighter and the first hit. I light it up, hit it, hold it in, prepare for a new and different kind of burn—not of the "I've lost Bella" variety, but of the herbal "I just don't give a shit" variety—and pass it over.

"Life," James says, his voice strained with the hold of his smoke. He lets it out. "We do it to ourselves sometimes."

I slide down the wall, pull my knees up, arms resting on top. I nod slowly.

"I owe you an apology."

"What for?" I ask, as I blow out my second hit. I reach out and pass it.

"For thinking you had it any easier than the rest of us." He hits the blunt.

"Because of money."

He shrugs. And I can't be pissed. I'm learning most people think that way. Hell, maybe it's like my mother said, the way I carried myself.

"You walk around like the world owes you everything," my mother had said. "Just like your father." Damn, how old was I when she said that? Fifteen? Maybe I did walk around that way. I don't anymore. I know I don't, now.

"You couldn't stand me," I say to James.

"Nah. Truth is, I didn't care one way or the other. Not until Victoria started hanging with you. I didn't want that. Thought you were like Whitlock." He turns his head, taking another hit. "Turns out, you're pretty cool."

This makes me laugh. "I _was_ like Jasper. Pretty much." I take the blunt from him.

Leaning my head back, I close my eyes, let the high take over, let it work its way through me like a machine, hurtling through my bloodstream. I can almost see it happening. Fast, like a roller coaster car, up, down, and around the track of my system. "Man, I forgot how good your stuff is."

"Not mine anymore. My cousin's."

"Right." I let my mind open up. I can hear it. It's that sound you hear when you open a Ziploc bag. "You ever think one day the earth might open up and swallow you?" I know how high I sound, and I'm going with it, loving it.

"I think it would more like sneeze this huge sneeze and shoot us into space."

This cracks me up, and he laughs, too. Some quiet laugh, like he doesn't want to admit how funny that was.

When my laughter dies down I start thinking of Isabella again.

"Victoria writes poetry," he says.

"I know. Ever read any?"

"Sometimes she lets me. Used to be so sad, man, her poems. Still are sometimes, but they're getting better. I mean less sad."

"Good, that's good." I take another hit. "Isabella smells like lavender," I say and laugh. "I miss her."

He doesn't say anything, but passes the blunt my way again. It isn't much bigger than my thumb-tip now.

"She does these things I'll never understand, like she refuses to paint her fingernails, hates it, but she paints her toenails." I remember the night I noticed them and kissed her toes. The next thing James says has me wondering, but not really caring, if I spoke that memory out loud.

"Dude, you're too in-ebri-ated." He pronounces it like it takes effort to remember the word. And I listen closer because of his slow talking.

We're stupid high.

He takes the joint from me. "You're entering this black and fucking scary arena of stuff I do not need to know." He hits it. "Let me tell you a story before you say anything you'll regret tomorrow." He tells me about why his dad's in prison, and soon after we're sort of one-upping each other on horrible things about our dads. He ends it by telling me I win, because my dad is still around to fuck with my life.

.

Two weeks without her and it hasn't gotten any easier.

At school, one more hard run and Coach approaches me again. "You're on the team, Cullen."

I just nod. I am.

"Practice on Thursday. Five o'clock."

I see her at her locker, hair in a ponytail, neck all exposed as she looks up, searching for the right book. The hall's crowded and I'm close when I pass her. Close enough to touch her, and I do. I reach out to graze the back of her hand. She turns to me, a questioning look crossing her face. I give her an apologetic shrug, trying to tell her in silence that I just can't fucking help it.

I walk away, head to the ground, forcing my mind on other things. Like how I'm going to be able to afford the track uniform.

I'd caught my father pulling cash from his wallet this morning. I watched how he did it, taking all the cash out, not counting it, just dividing it in half. Is that what he'd always done? Given me half of what he had?

"Hey," I said as the cash landed on the counter. "You dropped something."

He turned to look at me, but didn't say a word.

"Well, pick it up."

He did.

"Put it back in your wallet."

He did.

I walked past him, not looking at him but feeling his eyes on me. I turned around. "You know, if you want to teach your kids how to respect money, or whatever..." I remembered the money had started appearing when I turned fourteen. Max is almost there. "Too late with me, but with Max. Don't just make it appear like nothing and then use it to control him. Make him work for it if that's what you want, but don't use it as punishment. Don't ever do to Max what you've done to me. And you don't have to love me, but love him. He's a good kid. And he's hurting, _Carlisle_. So either love him or stay the hell out of his life."

I walked out.

"You think I don't love you?"

I had the urge to flip him off over my shoulder, and a month ago I would've done it, maybe even a week ago, but just then, I kept my hands in my pocket.

On my way to my last class a girl's voice calls my name. Not the right voice.

It's Lauren. "I hear you're available."

"You heard wrong." I walk faster. She keeps up.

"But you and Isabella aren't together anymore."

"Doesn't make me available. See ya." I've got to get out of the school. I decide to skip my last class.

I wander toward the forest. Maybe I _should_ make myself available. I've got to fill this void. This hole. But I can't be available to anyone at this school. Not in front of Isabella. And just as I think of her, I almost pass right by her under the trees. Or maybe she's just a mirage.

"Edward?"

She's real. "You, too?"

"Guess so."

I want to go to her, hug her, kiss her, hold her. I want to feel her head on my chest, her breath on my neck, her arms around my back. Maybe she is a dream. If I'm dreaming, what's holding me back?

"Are you a dream?"

"Sorry, it's me in the flesh." She raises her arms a little, just to her waist, like a "here I am" apology.

I don't know what to say. How do I have a regular conversation with her?

She knows. "Read any good books lately?"

This is harder than I thought. I want to walk away. "Nothing worth mentioning. You?"

"Just rereading something I borrowed from a friend a while back."

I nod. I'm that friend she's talking about. Friend. I can see in her eyes she wants me. I recognize this look well enough. It makes my restraint even harder.

"Bella, I can't pretend like this. All I want to do right now is-"

"Can't we be friends? We were good friends before."

I think about that. Friends again. It won't be easy, but it will keep us in each other's lives. Maybe that's what she's thinking, too.

"All right, so you want to be Book Buddies again?"

"Book Buddies? Is that what we were?"

We were everything.

I lean up against a tree and relax down to my ass.

"How's Max?"

"Still having problems at school. Those kids can be cruel. I'm learning what we put Victoria through all those years."

"We? You were involved?"

"I don't know. I didn't try to stop it, or stand up to it."

"Well, she's fine now. Her and James are really happy together. I… it's hard to be around them sometimes. They remind me of…"

My eyes close.

"How are you, Edward?"

Awful. Miserable. Shit. "Okay."

She takes some steps toward me, and stops. I tell her she can sit down if she wants to, and she does, laying her jacket down for protection from the wet ground. I don't even care about that, the dampness creeping through my jeans. She sits close.

She starts rubbing her hands together.

"Cold?"

I take her hand, just pick it up to feel it, not linking fingers or anything like that. This is fine, I think. Just this. Her palm, flat against mine, weighs nothing. Do I offer her my jacket? Can I do that? I'd do it for Victoria, so why not for Bella? I take my jacket off and lay it over her shoulders.

She looks at me. "Thanks."

I can't look away from her.

She sighs; she looks away; she lays her head on my shoulder. And I can't move. Both of us are so still. I can smell her. It's all lavender. She hasn't changed. Nothing about her has changed, but we've changed immeasurably.

I turn my head toward her. If I just - if I kiss her forehead, and that's all. I press my lips to her forehead. I let them linger, maybe too long. I squeeze my eyes closed tight.

_I miss you. _

My stomach tightens.

She turns to me. We're face to face. I think she wants me to kiss her. There's a lump in my throat so big I can feel it in my ears.

I miss her lips her tongue her hands. Everything. All of it.

Maybe here, in the forest, under the trees things are different. Maybe we can be together here. Just here. My palm light on her jaw, my fingers move against her cheek. Her head tilts. She's so beautiful. Just one kiss. Just one more.

I move forward and I whisper. "Bella, Isabella."

She stands up. I'm no longer touching her face or looking into her eyes. My gaze follows her.

She hands her jacket to me and picks hers up off the ground. There's something different about her smile.

She walks off. I see her reach up to wipe at her face.

I feel like shit. I went too far. I've made her cry. I stay right where I am until school lets out, then go to pick up Max.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

It seems the snow has left us for the season. The streets, no longer white, are constantly wet and dark. I miss the scent of cement in the sun that I remember smelling in Sonoma. It's such a different smell from streets that almost never dry. Thinking of the smell of Sonoma's streets reminds me of making out with James in some stranger's boat, how it felt to have him between my legs for the first time. To have him breathing in a way that tells me he wants me, wants me in a way he's never wanted anything else. It makes me touch my chest now just thinking about it.

I turn from his window toward him; he's still asleep. I wrap my arms around him, and his wrap me up, too, pulling me in close, tucking my head under his chin. All in his sleep.

I breathe in his chest, the faint smell of soap mixed with his day old skin. This is better than streets warming in the sun. And this scent isn't a memory; it's right here for me to hold and touch and kiss. And so I do.

He starts kissing me back, my cheek, my neck, my shoulder, where he says, "Good morning."

"Poetry me," I say, rolling to my back, feeling his lips slide down and across my stomach.

He nibbles near my belly button. "Can't get enough of your love, baby," he says, he sort of sings, on my hip.

"You're Barry Whiting me."

"Yes," he says on my thigh.

"You're so much cheese now." My fingers slip into his soft hair.

"Your turn," he says on his way back up my body.

"Your hair is tickling my tummy."

He turns his head so that it tickles more. I try to keep my laugh quiet.

"That isn't a poem," he says just before kissing my breast.

And then he kisses my other breast and his fingers are between my legs, and my thoughts whirl through the air adding up to nothing but, "More."

"I want you inside me," I whisper. "How's that for a poem?"

With a deep breath in, he drags his mouth up the middle of my chest to my throat. "Perfect," he says.

.

I haven't seen Edward around much since their break up. We don't have any classes together, he no longer sits with us at lunch, and he takes off right after the last bell.

In the parking lot, Isabella's walking fast, her head aimed at the ground. When I catch up to her she looks upset all over again. I prod her to tell me what's wrong and she says that they ran into each other today in the woods behind the school. She tells me that he almost kissed her, and that she wanted him to.

"Maybe I should've just let him."

"But you didn't?"

"I walked away. I hate walking away from him. It's the opposite of what my body wants to do. It's like I feel pinpricks all over me when I do it."

"What about him? Did he say anything?"

"Not much. He looks sad, though, and you know, like he's not shaving, and really good, too. God, _so good_. I-" she looks off into the distance, her eyes filling and then she blinks a few times and looks back at me. "I hate his dad."

I feel helpless, unable to think of anything to say that might make her feel better right now. She picks up my hand and weaves our fingers together.

"I miss his hand in mine. I miss his arm around me." She puts one arm around my neck and hugs me quick, saying low next to my ear, "I have to go." And she takes off toward her truck.

.

I think maybe I should check up on Edward. I call to make sure he's home and then go to his house, his pool house.

He answers the door, leaves it open for me and walks off without saying anything. In the seconds before he turned, I saw what Isabella had meant. His face was all furry, his hair messier than usual, and actually, he looked unshowered. "When was the last time you shaved?" I follow him over to the spot between his living room area and his bed.

His voice is rough and stern, like a hard to start engine that suddenly lurches. "I'm growing it out. Leave it alone."

"Okay."

"And I just got back from a run. If you want me to be clean-shaven before you come over, just tell me ahead of time."

"Sorry."

He turns, lifting and dropping his arms, and when he speaks next, his voice is calmer. "I'm a jerk."

"You're just... sad." I wag my tilted head at him and I probably shouldn't be looking at him like this, like I feel sorry for him, but I do, and I can't help it.

His face drops, looking more depressed than before. I have to avert my eyes, as if he's having a very private moment with memories. I know those.

I hadn't noticed the mess before. There are empty frames on the floor, black, different sizes, and a box of photos and albums, pictures scattered all over, trailing off as if they're trying to escape.

I wonder what he'd say if he knew Isabella was also surrounded by pictures when I went to see her that first time. His aren't all of Isabella, though. His look like family photos.

He shrugs. "The place needs pictures."

"Need help?" I sit down with him on the floor.

He pulls some out of the box, sifts through them, drops them one at a time wherever they land. "I'm looking for one. It's my mom, Max, and me. It's her birthday, her last birthday. She's wearing one of those paper party crowns or tiaras, you know? I can't find it. I don't know where she put it."

I pick up an album in search of what he's described.

"I went out that night."

I stop what I'm doing and look at him.

"She kissed my cheek, told me to be nice to the girls. I told her I am nice. It was a lie. I went out with Heidi that night. And Jasper. I wasn't nice to her. I mean, to her face I was. But I didn't care about her. Not the way she maybe thought I did."

"Edward, you don't have to-"

"See, 'cause, maybe I deserve this. Maybe I'm getting what was coming to me."

"But, if that's true, does Isabella deserve it? Because she's going through this, too. Almost the same thing."

He doesn't say anything else, just starts rifling through pictures again.

I turn the pages in the album. It's an older one, from when Edward and Max were little. I don't think I'll find the one he's looking for in here, but I keep looking through it anyway. When I'm done with that one, I pick up another one. This one is Carlisle and Elizabeth's wedding album. I stare at her dress - the same color as the moon glowing behind her - her bouquet of flowers, her smile. Edward's smile is like hers.

"I remembered it bigger than this," he says.

I look up; he has a picture in his hand. "You found it?"

He's turning to his side, moving frames around. "I don't have the right size frame."

I tell him he can get a matte for the frame, or make one.

Eyes back on the album in my lap, I turn the page. The reception. Everyone looking so young and happy. The cake. As tall as the table it's on, and all white.

I almost miss it. I almost turn the page, when I see her. My mom. Standing with Carlisle and Elizabeth. She was at their wedding? I pull the picture from its sleeve for a closer look. Carlisle's in the middle. If she was friends with Edward's mom, wouldn't she have been standing next to her?

"What is that?" Edward asks.

I meet his eyes but can't say anything. He takes the picture from me.

"What?" he asks.

"That woman, next to your dad. She's my mom."

Edward looks closer and then looks at me.

I don't know what to say. I don't even know what to think.

I leaf through the album to see if my mom is in any other pictures. I turn back, every page, even checking the backgrounds for her.

"Is your dad home?"

"Not that I know of."

"When will he be home?"

"I never know. I'll check with Max, or Esme."

"Do you think he's at the hospital?"

"Yeah. He's not out of town, so if he isn't home, that's where he is."

I get up and hold my hand out for the picture. "Can I take it? I'll give it back."

He hands it to me. "Keep it. It's yours."

"I'm going to find him."

"Want me to come?"

I pause. I know he doesn't want to talk to his dad, and the pounding in my chest is telling me I can't go for another second without trying to find Carlisle and talking to him. I don't need Edward or anyone else with me. I tell him to stay.

.

It isn't easy to talk to Dr. Carlisle Cullen when he's at work. The nurse at the station keeps telling me to make an appointment, the first available one being three _weeks_ away. I explain again that I'm not a patient or a patient's family member, that this is personal.

"Then find him during his time off," she says, looking away, over at the computer, tapping keys. I stare at her until she turns to me again.

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the tears in my eyes or the wavering in my voice when I try for one last, "Please," but she says she'll page him.

I sit in a chair against the wall and wait. It takes him more than twenty minutes to answer the page. I stand when I see him, rubbing my hands on the back of my pants.

"Is there something I can help you with?" he asks, smiling at me. He doesn't seem as bothered by my visit as the nurse had been. His smile is straighter than Edward's, his teeth bigger, but his eyes, they're the same.

"I'm Edward's friend. My name's Victoria. Victoria Mayes."

I don't even have to search his face. The recognition is apparent. His mouth drops the slightest bit, his brow creasing.

"Charlotte Mayes is my mother."

He turns his head to the side but his eyes don't leave mine. "If you're her daughter, then she's here? In Forks?"

"No. I live with my aunt. Her sister. She raised me."

He frowns, scratching his temple. "And you're Edward's age?"

I nod.

"She didn't raise you?"

"Nope."

"Is she... where is she?"

"We don't know. Nobody seems to know."

"Your aunt doesn't know?"

His pager beeps; he checks it, but doesn't leave.

"Sometimes she does, but not right now. I've been trying to find her."

His pager beeps again. He shakes his head. "I can't - I have work to do. Hold on. Wait right here." He holds a finger out to me that tells me to stay put.

He strides over to the nurse's station, and comes back to me minutes later. Whatever work he had to do, or patient he needed to see, he got out of it. He invites me to follow him to his office.

"So, she's missing?" he asks, as he closes the door and switches the light on. A ceiling fan spins with it. The air pushes the ends of my hair around.

We stand facing each other. He doesn't go behind his desk, or offer me a seat.

"Not really." Do I have to tell him about her? He seems really concerned, caring in a way that seems deeper than anyone else I've talked to about my mom. Even more than Peter. "My mom's sick."

"Sick? In what sense?"

"She's a drug addict." I'm looking at the pocket on his smock when I say it. I don't think I've ever said it out loud before and it sounds dirty.

"What?"

I let it soak in. When I meet his eyes, I notice his have changed. They're darting back and forth.

"And you don't have any idea where she might be?"

I tell him about Peter and Maggie, and how they really led me to nothing.

"She might be in a rehab program somewhere, she might be on the streets, she might be dead."

He rubs a hand across his forehead and kind of pinches the skin there.

He asks me for Maggie and Peter's phone numbers. And that's when he goes behind his desk to jot them down. Hunched over his desk, he looks up at me. "I'll find her. Would you like me to contact you when I do?"

The confidence in his voice has me stepping back, like it's stronger than I am, like it can knock me down if I'm not firmly grounded. I don't know how I answer, but somehow I do. "Yes, please." And my mind is running a mile a minute, so fast that, invited or not, I take a seat.

* * *

><p>AN: Hi readers! Thank you for reading!

I want to apologize for not getting a chance to reply to all of you. I love reading your reviews; you all say such great things. A lot of what you say really makes me think, and I want to reply. I just run out of time. I'm working on several stories right now. And when I say several, I mean six. So with time constraints, in the end, I think maybe you'd rather have an update than a reply.

I wonder if any of you are caught off guard with this turn of events, or if you expected something like this to happen. :)


	34. Sprouts

**In the Debris**

**Sprouts**

**Victoria**

Sinking into the soft chair, fan above spinning around and around like my brain, it feels as if the blood in my veins has been replaced with sand. I'm so heavy.

It's the questions weighing me down, piling up faster than I can think. As Carlisle looks at me from the other side of his desk, eyebrows slightly raised as if wondering why I'm still here, a question escapes like it has wings. It flies right out of my mouth.

"She was at your wedding?" I take the picture from my bag and hold it toward him. Only I don't get up so he has to come around his desk to take it from me.

He looks at the picture. "This was one of the last times I saw her."

"Why was she there?"

"She was invited." Eyes still on the picture, his answer is the obvious one, not exactly answering the question I'd asked. His thumb runs over a spot on the photo, not on my mother's side, so I can only imagine he's rubbing over Elizabeth's face.

"You were... close?"

"We were." He hands the picture back to me. "At one time. We were kids."

"But you don't know my aunt? Cheri Dwyer?"

He repeats her name. "She's a nurse here. I had no idea she was Char's sister. This whole time?"

I kind of frown, because of course they've been sisters this whole time. But then I think he's referring to a thought in his mind, asking himself a question like, all this time my aunt's worked here, he's never known she was related to my mom.

"We mustn't have gone to school together."

"She's older. Six years older than my mom."

Carlisle nods. "I transferred in as a Junior. She must have graduated by then."

I remember my aunt telling me that after she'd gone off to college she rarely came back to Forks until my grandma got sick and my mom wasn't around to help care for her.

"When was the last time you saw my mom?"

"She came to see me. Just before she left town. I, um..." Looking away from me, his eyes narrow and he gives a quick shake of his head as if ridding, or trying to rid, his brain of thoughts. I'm watching him so closely. Everything about him. Studying him like a photograph.

"Do you know why she left?"

He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, his voice is changed. Whereas before when he answered my questions, he sounded far away, almost as if he was talking to himself, now he's most definitely talking to me, strong-voiced, resolute. "Look, I've got to get back to work. Leave me your phone number. I'll contact you as soon as I know where to find your mother."

He starts to walk out, but then turns back. "It was nice to meet you... Victoria?"

"Yes."

"You look a lot like her."

The door clicks closed behind him and locks automatically. I sit in the chair for a little while longer before moving to his desk and scribbling my phone number under the numbers he'd copied from my phone. Turning off the light, I exit the room. The sharp, sterile scent of the hospital halls fill me.

I go straight home and after calling James to tell him about Carlisle, I sit at my desk, allowing myself to write a poem full of questions just to get them out of my system. The questions come in the form of scents.

Ginger carries the question _How did they meet?_ on its back.

As if a long-closed wood chest is opened, cedar rises with _Were they more than friends?_

Peppermint wraps tight around _Did he love her?_

With the question of whether he is my dad or not, and the overwhelming possibility that he just might be, black pepper fills the room.

On the heels of, _If he isn't, does he know who is?_ comes the sterility of Clorox. Truth, so close.

Is this what Pandora's box was like when she opened it? Did every evil, hardship and disease lift out with a scent? And if so, what do unanswered questions smell like?

Black licorice forever in your hair, on your pillow, in your breath.

It's after midnight when I shut my book and wander to my window. It amazes me how much white I can see in the overcast sky this late at night, the full moon glowing behind clouds just like someone had thrown a ball of light into the sky and it never came down. It's the kind of night sky that's hard to look away from, sort of like my life right now. Still, I vow to stars I can't see that I will look away; I won't think of Carlisle or my mother until I hear from him again. When I'm done with my vow, I pull my shade down, turn from the window, undress and climb into bed.

After closing my eyes to the vision of my mother's chip-toothed smile and her dripping caramel curls, I call James.

He sounds groggy and tired when he answers, the sound of dreams trailing behind his voice like tails of a comet.

"Talk to me about anything," I say.

His sigh is a "hmm..."

"I wish you were here," I whisper.

"Me, too. Want me to come over?"

"Mud's home." He worked the day shift today.

"I'll park around the corner and come up the back."

"Can you see out your window?"

"Mm-hmm."

"What does the sky look like to you?"

There's a long pause, a little bit of rustling like he's moving to a different position. "You."

"You mean my life? Hard to look away from?"

"No, I mean like you. And yeah, hard to look away from."

"Come over."

Keeping my vow isn't an easy thing to do, but James makes it easier. As does Mr. Alistair.

The day after St. Patrick's Day, in the form of a huge banner slung over his door, Mr. Alistair announces that he's caught a leprechaun. There are miniature footprints in the frosting of some cakes under the glass. Tiny nibbles have been taken from cookies and doughnuts. M&Ms and chocolate chips have been spilled on the counter. All proof of leprechaun mischief. Mr. Alistair invites kids in for some free treats that the leprechaun had offered up in exchange for his freedom.

"I shouldn't even be telling you about him," he tells the kids. "He'd get so angry if he knew. Please, please keep the secret!" He's so dramatic about it that I almost believe him; I'm almost afraid to talk about his secret.

.

The Thursday of Spring Break, James and I take Isabella to the lake to fish off the dock. Up before sunrise, we trade yawns, each of us blanketed in layers of warm clothes, coats and scarves, knit hats and boots.

Isabella stands, peering off into the distance. "I can see this dock from my window. I wonder if we can see my house from here."

"Maybe," James says, "when the sun comes up."

James baits her hook while I bait my own. And we all cast together, James in one corner of the dock, Isabella in the other, and me in the center.

"Fisher people are freaks," Isabella says, following it up with a simultaneous yawn and shiver.

I hand her the thermos of hot cocoa.

"I like this part," she says, pouring some into the thermos lid.

"And the quiet," James says. "Listen to it."

Seated, legs dangling over the dock, we listen to the sound of wind in trees, water lapping, the occasional soft crank of a fishing pole reel.

James' hand tiptoes over to land on top of mine. I look at him and he grins. I squeeze his fingers between mine.

Chilling wind whips across my nose, and ruffles the water. You wouldn't want to get into this lake unless you think turning into instant ice is a good idea. Even in the summer it's freezing. When I was a little girl, Mud took me here, and holding my hand, he let me put my feet in as we walked along the rocky shore. I hopped out like I'd been bitten. He laughed at me. "Told ya so," he said.

I shiver now with the memory.

The sun is on the rise over the lake, a circle of light, and it isn't gold, not quite. It's its own color, like fire, all combinations of brightness in one. It can hypnotize a person, and I think it's doing just that to me now. I lose all strength.

With my hood up for cushion, and my fishing pole gripped in one hand, I lie back on the dock. James does, too, and our heads line up. I turn to face him. He's already looking at me, cast in orange. Our eyes lock. He brings a finger up, slipping it along the inside edge of my hood, tugging a little, and I start to think about poetry. I'm not creating one of my mind-poems, but I'm thinking about what poetry is, because there's this clarity in me in this moment, and I can see where poetry comes from. It comes from the place in your mind that makes dreams. You have to listen to it, that part of your mind. It's hard to find when you're awake, but when you get to it, when you see it, you not only know your truest thoughts, but you feel them, inside yourself. Poetry is letting your heart and your lungs out into the open. And it's in every one of us, even those who don't write it. You can feel it. It _is_ you, not your body, but your breath. It's what you breathe. It's your soul. The shape of it. The color of it.

A noise from Isabella pulls me from my thoughts and I lean up on my elbows. Her pole is bending and she's freaking out. "Something's pulling me, something's pulling me."

I laugh, James says, "Beginner's luck," and tells her to start reeling it in.

As the fish at the end of her line starts flopping closer, Isabella makes this strange, quiet long "E" sound, and then she just hands her pole to James and covers her face.

"Look," he says after he bangs the fish's head hard on the dock to finish it off. "Look what you caught."

She peeks through her fingers.

"Here." He holds it out for her but she steps back.

"No, thank you. You keep it. Ew."

"It's just a fish."

"It's a corpse. Would you pick up a dead rat? Maybe you would, but I couldn't."

I elbow James to tell him to leave her alone.

"You really don't want it?" He starts putting it in his straw carrier.

"I really don't."

"You could give it to your dad."

"_You_ give it to my dad."

"All right. _I'll_ give it to your dad."

.

It's still early, not yet nine, when we pull up in front of Isabella's house. She invites us in to drop the fish off and offers to make us pancakes.

She mixes the batter, adding some secret ingredient to it—she won't tell us what it is—and then decides to take a shower while James and I fry them up.

James has his arms around me from behind as I flip a pancake, and neither of us realize that Isabella's mom is in the kitchen until we hear her voice. I love that James doesn't let go of me.

"You're not supposed to press the spatula down on them," she says.

"Why not?"

"What?"

"I said, why not?"

Renee pauses in thought, bringing a finger to her pink lips. Her brown hair is morning-messy, straggling down to the tops of her shoulders. "You know, I don't know. It's something my mom always told me."

"It's because pressing down on them makes them less fluffy," Isabella says, her hair wrapped up in a towel.

"Nice hat," James says to Isabella. She and her mom laugh.

None of us has said anything about Edward, but at the breakfast table, hair now falling down her back, drying, as she passes a plate of piled pancakes to me, Isabella's the one who brings him up. "How do you think he's doing?" she asks, assuming that we'll know who _he _is, and of course, we all do know.

"Today or in general?" I ask, taking the plate from her. I fork two pancakes onto my plate and pass.

"Why would today be any different?" She sips her orange juice.

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

I look at James.

"What?" she asks again.

"Today's the anniversary," I say.

"Anniversary of what?" But then I can tell by the look on her face and the way she drops her glass to the table that she understands. "Is he alone?"

"He said he's spending the day with Max."

And right at the table, with her mom watching, Isabella starts tearing up. Hands covering her face, she says, "This situation. It has to stop. "

.

James says his mom is visiting his dad today and asks me to come over. "We can make up some of the sleep we missed out on this morning."

"Sleep?" I ask as he's kissing me through the front door.

"Eventually."

My hands around his neck, his at my waist, we kiss and stumble, steady ourselves and then stumble again, down the hallway to his room.

"Are they going to be okay?" I ask on his lips.

"Who?"

"Isabella and Edward."

"I don't know, but we are."

He pulls me into his room fast, shuts the door, locks it, all while kissing me. His lips tingle against my throat while his hands tug at my shirt, lifting it, struggling with getting it off. I laugh as much as I can before his mouth stops me, my shirt falling to the floor. I feel his smile.

Pants off, he lifts me, hands on my sides, to his desk, and sets me down. Fingers over my breasts are followed by lips and tongue; my head falls back. And then he takes my hips and pulls me close. Close against him. I fiddle with his button, his zipper, and push at his pants. They slide down his thighs just enough.

I have one hand holding the back of his neck, gripping, keeping his lips on mine, while my other hand is on his chest, feeling his heartbeat rise in tempo as if communicating with my touch, like our bodies are in tune. And they are. That's just what they are.

"Victoria," he says, wrapping his arms around my back, leaving no space between us. "You drive me so crazy."

He holds my thighs, lifting my legs around him and pushes into me. The desk shakes with our movements.

"Sometimes I still can't believe we're here," he says into my shoulder.

"Where?"

His motions slow and I let my head fall back, feeling every slip of movement. His lips find my arched throat. "Here. Where we are. Where we can do this, have each other like this."

"We're here," I say, and it sounds more like a croak. "We're laced together." I wrap my legs tighter around him, pulling him close with my crossed ankles. "Laced. Laced. Laced."

He groans, speeding up again, pressing harder, breathing deep. "Keep talking, Beautiful. Keep talking."

I speak into his mouth and he swallows every word as he grabs at my body. Tighter.

When we're finished his lips turn tender, kissing at my cheekbone, down, down, down, to my mouth.

This is love. And we're here.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

It's been months since I've had a dream of my mother, but it's no shock to me when I wake up this morning, on the anniversary of her death, with her face behind my eyes.

Max and I are going to her grave today, stopping at the flower shop along the way.

We both take a moment to ourselves to place flowers in the vase attached to her headstone.

Max cries so many tears I think he could fill that vase. I have to turn around, but even then, I still hear his sniffles. Each one is another pang to my chest, a punch to the gut. A reminder of how he smashed things up that day. This day.

"Okay," I say, a hand to his shoulder. "All right." I pull him to my side.

After my turn, I reach into my backpack and grab two water guns. I spin around fast, squirting Max in the face. He yells and I put a finger over my lips to shush him. Tossing him a gun, I lead him off the grounds. He's squirting me from behind, soaking my jacket and the back of my neck. Outside the gates we start running, shooting at each other. Cars pass by, we face off with our guns, we laugh, we remember.

.

At home, I recall what Max told me, that he misses the way our mother used to come and sit with him to talk about his day. I sit on his bed trying to do that, trying to get him to talk.

"What's going on at school, Bro? Tell me about it."

"Nothing."

"Come on, man, tell me something. I don't care what it is. Complain about homework if you want."

"There's this movie night coming up. In the gym."

"Yeah? That's cool. They never had anything like that when I went there."

"Yeah. But they need chaperones, and they say anyone over eighteen can do it. And you're over eighteen."

"You want me to go?"

"It's just a kids' movie, _Tom Sawyer_. 'Cause we're reading that book - the whole seventh grade's reading it. So, but would you?"

"Yeah, sure. It sounds like a hell of a night." I smile at him.

"So, you're going? I can put your name down?"

"I said yes, didn't I? What am I? A liar?" I laugh. "Put my name down. Put me on the list."

"Okay." He gives me his smile.

"Tell me something else."

"Will you teach me to play guitar?"

"You-you want to learn?"

When he says he does, there's no getting to the pool house fast enough to grab my guitar. Back on his bed, facing each other, sitting with legs crossed underneath us, I teach him a few chords. He picks them up fast enough. "Want to learn Mom's favorite? It's easy."

I teach him the intro to _Let it Be. _He fumbles time after time, and has to start over, but on the next mess-up he starts to abuse the guitar, hitting it too rough on the bed out of frustration. I catch it on the next drop.

"Hey, watch it. Take it easy."

"It's too hard."

"No, it isn't. You're better than I was learning. I wanted to throw it in the pool a few times. Just keep trying. You'll get it."

He brings it back to his lap. "Mom taught you this?" he asks, strumming.

"Yeah, and look at you. You're not even looking at your fingers after throwing half a tantrum. You need an attitude adjustment, kid."

"You played with her?"

"You know I did. What's going on?"

"Will you play with me?"

"I'll play with you anytime you want. I'll get you your own guitar tomorrow."

"With what money? I'll get my own guitar."

I laugh at him and rough up his hair. "Smartass."

I work on teaching him and he works on learning for so long that we decide to eat our dinner in here. Esme brings it up to us on a tray. She and my father will be eating downstairs, but they're leaving Max and me to do what we want. They've been here, but have left us both alone all day, which is exactly what Max and I want. All day, this day, just the two of us. We eat and play, eat and play. Eventually I sneak into my parents' room, into the closet, to look for my mom's guitar. I find it in its case in my father's closet, up on the top shelf. I'm both surprised and relieved that it's there. I use hers and let Max continue with mine. We've moved on to other songs, and sometimes Max just goes wild with the pick. I like when he does stuff like this, when he acts like a thirteen year old kid rather than a kid too old for his age - a kid who's been through too much, who knows too much.

"It's late," I say, taking the guitar from him. "Go brush your teeth and get into bed. Been a long day, Max."

While he's in the bathroom I close my mother's guitar back into its case, lean it up against the wall, and then wait at the foot of his bed for him to return.

Climbing into bed, lifting his covers over him, he asks, "Know what I wanna do when I grow up?"

"What's that? Famous guitarist?"

"I want to be a doctor. Like Dad."

I sit up straight, looking down at him. "You should."

"I want to save people. When you save a person, you don't just save that one person, you save their whole family. That's what I want to do."

I lean back against the footboard thinking about how smart my brother is. How much smarter he is than I am.

"You should do it. You can. If anyone can, you can. And if you really want to, I mean, wait until you're sure, but you should tell Dad. He'll probably hit the moon or something when he hears that. Just don't tell him too soon, before you're positive, because once it's out, he'll never let you take it back."

We're quiet, he turns over, and I'll wait as long as it takes for him to fall asleep. It's after eleven and his breathing is deep and even before I reach for the lamp. A small square of paper catches my eye and I pick it up.

It's a note from a girl named Kate. It says: _Max, do you like me or not? _

And there are three squares drawn with the words _Yes, No, Maybe_, underneath. She signed it: _Love, Kate_

None of the boxes have been checked. I wish I'd seen this before he fell asleep. Dropping the note back to the nightstand, I switch off the light.

.

I've rarely been as stunned as I am when I open my door to see Bella standing in front of the couch.

"What are you-" Holding the neck of my guitar out to my side, I look behind me, turn, and then turn back around. She's still here.

"You were playing?" She motions to the guitar. I set it against the wall.

"Why are you here?"

She raises and drops her arms, her bracelets jingling. The fact that she's wearing them tells me that it isn't easy for her to be here, and I immediately regret my tone of voice, even if it was more shock than anything else. "I heard that today's the day." She comes a little closer to me, looking into my eyes. "I'm sorry, Edward."

"Th-Thank you." I still have a hard time believing what I'm seeing.

"I couldn't - I know we aren't… but I couldn't let you be alone." She touches my arm. She really is here. And, man, she already has tears in her eyes and I know there's no way I'm going to get through this with a dry face. Especially not after all the holding back I've done all day. I try. Hard.

She starts pulling something out of her bag, which I think might be her camera, but turns out to be a candle. She places it on my nightstand.

"What are you doing?"

"Do you have matches or a lighter? It's lavender, soothing."

I'm already shaking my head the second she says "lavender." "No." I'm still shaking my head, and I don't think I'll stop until the candle's back in her bag. "I can't. It - lavender smells like you. So, I can't."

"Okay." She offers a small smile. "Well, good thing I brought something else then." Reaching back into her bag she pulls out a small jar, moves into the kitchen and starts heating water over the stove. "I'm making Lemon Balm tea. To help you sleep. Don't argue. Please. Even if you think this is ridiculous, will you let me do this for you?"

"Bella, you're not my girlfriend anymore."

"No, but I still care… Is this wrong?"

I have no idea if it's wrong or not; all I know is I don't want her to leave. "I'm glad you're here. Just surprised."

The next things coming out of her bag are a box of Ritz crackers and a bottle of honey shaped like a bear. She squeezes a glob of honey on a cracker and hands it to me.

"Magic?"

"No." I can tell she's trying not to smile. "Or maybe. I don't know. I just like these."

We eat her crackers and honey and drink her tea at the counter. She asks about Max. I tell her about our day, and she laughs, and says that a water gun fight at a cemetery is better than anything she's ever heard. She wants to tell Victoria because she thinks there must be a poem in there somewhere.

"I'm just glad my father and Esme are home tonight. And they have been all day, even when Max and I were gone. At least that's something, you know? And at least Max isn't all alone over there right now."

She goes back to her bag that seems to hold never-ending things, and returns with a greeting card envelope.

"It's for Max."

I take it and place it on the counter. "He wants to be a doctor. He wants to save entire families."

"I don't think you have to worry about him, Edward. He's a pretty amazing kid."

We finish the tea, place the cups in the sink, and then our eyes land on each other. "I never thought this was ridiculous," I say, gesturing to her tea jar.

She pulls her lips into her mouth, her eyes watering up all over again. "I'm not going to cry. I promise. I swear I'm not. I'll try not to cry."

Tears are already burning my eyes. "Well, I.." Tears swamp and I try to get rid of them with my thumb and forefinger.

Bella reaches for me; I step back. "Wait. Wait." But it's too late, I'm already breaking down, fingers over my eyelids. She comes forward again, pulling me down to her, rubbing the back of my neck while I let loose on her shoulder.

"It's okay," she whispers. "It's fine. It's okay."

I kind of shake my head into her neck, and my hands are just at her waist, holding there, gripping her shirt and her skin.

"You should lie down."

We move to the bed, where she continues to offer me comfort in her arms. Floodgates have opened, and I don't know if they'll ever close back up.

"I miss her so fucking much."

"I know," she says. "I can imagine."

"She'd be so proud of Max. I wish he knew that."

"She'd be proud of you, too. I know she would and I've never even met her."

My head on her chest, I wrap both my arms around her waist like she's My Bella again, and I pretend she is. And I want to ask her to forget about everything that's happened and just be like this. Just be us. Just us. Like this. But I don't want her running off from me, and for now she's in my arms and she's staying here.

My voice seems too loud cutting through the silence that's built firm and solid minute after minute around us. "What did you wish for? That time I found the lavender under your pillow?"

She shifts under me, lying down flatter on her back. "It hasn't come true yet. I told you, I'll tell you when it comes true." She sounds tired, her voice heavy.

"Is it still there? The lavender? Under your pillow?"

"Yes."

I roll to my back, pulling her with me, placing her head against my chest, my fingers rubbing at the side of her head, pushing at her hair. Her arm falls over my stomach. "I love that about you."

"I love you, too," she says, and I can't move, unsure she even realizes what she's just said.

I bring my other arm around her, kissing the top of her head so lightly she might not feel it. But I do.

Bella stays with me most of the night. In the morning, she's gone, or maybe she was never here, maybe I dreamed her. I bring the pillow to my face and I smell her hair there, and with a glance at the dresser, I see she's left something. Proof she's been here. Her Mickey snow dome. I go over and pick it up, turn it around.

What does this mean?

I remember what she told me about it, how it was useful and important because it holds memories. I set it on my nightstand. It looks like nothing I'd ever buy for myself, yet it's now one of the most important things I own.

When there's a knock at my door, I think maybe it's Bella, but it isn't. My father is standing there. He's never come out here before, not while I've lived here.

"You sent your girl over?"

"What?"

"Isabella."

"No, I didn't."

"She said something interesting."

I look into his eyes now. He's got my attention.

"She tells me you run track."

"So?"

"She tells me you might want me to attend one of your meets."

What is she up to? I want to deny that because it's the last thing I want. But Bella said it for a reason. I look over at that Mickey dome. It means more than I know. She's trying to tell me something, but I can't figure out what it is. I've never really been good at figuring her out. It's another thing I love about her.

"Might be nice," I say, going along with it.

"She's kind of a pretty girl. Smart, too."

"Very. What else did you talk about?"

"College. Did you know she's applied to Cornell?"

"Yeah, one of many."

"She got in."

"She told _you_ that? I didn't know." What is this? Is she going there?

"When's your next meet?"

I tell him it's tomorrow. It's a make-up meet after being rained out a few weeks back. He says he'll try to be there. I have doubts.

"Bring Max," I say. "If you can make it."

I call Bella as soon as the door shuts behind my father.

"Why didn't you tell me about Cornell last night? You got in?" I congratulate her.

"I didn't exactly get in. I was wait-listed. I told him that."

"Still, that's huge."

She thanks me. I ask her why she talked to my father and why she told him that I want him at my meet.

"Is he going?"

"He says he'll try to make it. Why did you talk to him? What are you doing?"

"He'll be there."

"How do you know?"

"Because I do."

I understand she has no intention of telling me what she's up to. "Will you come?"

"I come to all of them."

"What? I've never seen you."

"Just until you run. Then I leave."

"Man, you saw me get dusted by Hillview."

"You weren't that far behind." She laughs.

"I was two seconds behind. That's a lot."

The conversation has gotten easy, it's almost as if nothing's gone wrong between us. But it has and I can't deny this and I can't think of anything else to say that's right, that's friend-like. I grip the phone harder.

"Edward?"

I rub my forehead with a knuckle, close my eyes, afraid to say anything with the way my chest has tightened.

"Edward?"

I swallow, loosen up on the phone in my hand a little. "Yeah."

"Oh, I thought-" she pauses; I listen to her take a breath. Her voice gets quieter. "I thought you left."

"I'm here," I say, and it's raspy. I'm always here.

We're both quiet now, just breathing. Just my thoughts and whatever hers are between us until she says she should go.

I want to tell her to stay on the line, even if we don't talk, just stay.

"Okay," I say.

Later when I go to the main house to check up on Max, I find eight-by-ten pictures of me on the counter right where cash used to be left. They're of my track meets. There's one of me crossing the finish line in first place. She gave these to my father. Why? To get him to my meet?

It works.

My father does come to Saturday's meet, and he brings Max and Esme. He tells Max and me that we're invited to Esme's mom's house for lunch. He also tells us that we're all definitely going out of respect for Esme. Her mother, our step-grandmother, lives in Port Angeles, which is where the meet is, so there's really no way out of this. After lunch, my father and Esme will be taking off for Seattle. He has a surgery scheduled. They'll be gone until Monday. I'm told to keep an eye on Max. I wonder if Max is also told to keep an eye on me.

I look around for Bella, can't find her but I know she's here somewhere. I run like she's here and I piss Mike off by beating his record.

"You'll just have to run harder," I tell him. "You can do it." I slap his shoulder and flash him a smile; he shrugs me off.

Afterwards, I assume that if Bella was ever here, she's already left. I did ask her to come. I didn't ask her to stay or talk to me. Won't be making that mistake again.

I'm walking toward the parking lot with Max when I see red hair out of the corner of my eye. Too familiar.

"Victoria!"

She turns. I walk up to her, Max following. "Where is she?"

She points to the bathrooms.

"Hey, we were friends first, remember?"

"Is it a competition?"

"Tell me what she's up to. Show your loyalty to an old friend."

She looks conflicted enough to prove to me she knows something, but she acts like she has no idea what I'm talking about. I see where her loyalty is.

Girls.

"Max, you want a hotdog?" She takes him away. Turns out she still has a little loyalty to me after all.

I watch Bella exit the bathroom. She spots me right away and comes over.

"They're getting hotdogs," I say, motioning with a hand in my jacket pocket toward the snack bar. I ask her if she wants anything and she laughs, shaking her head.

She's wearing her hair in a ponytail, exposing her neck, just the way I like it, only it's hard to keep from running a finger down her skin there. The wind keeps blowing the ponytail over one shoulder, and she keeps pushing it back. She's also wearing sunglasses, preventing me from seeing her eyes. I want to take them off, but I'm not sure if that's something a friend can do. I give it a shot. Hands on each side of her face, I slide them off, close them up and hand them to her.

"You look beautiful," I tell her, and kiss her cheek. It's quick. No lingering.

I notice she has her camera bag. "More pictures today?"

"He showed you?" Her smile is wide.

"They were on the kitchen counter. What are you doing, Bella?"

"Just watching you outrun everyone."

"Hey, you know those remedies you come up with? You got any suggestions for something that would work like a truth serum?"

"I'm telling the truth. You outran everyone today."

"Who said I wanted the truth serum for you?"

She rocks back on her heels and looks down at the ground.

Victoria and Max come back, Max munching away on his hotdog. Until now, I hadn't even thought that this might spoil his lunch.

Before we go, I get an idea, but it only works if Victoria or Bella bite. "Victoria, party at my house tonight," I say walking backwards. "Bring James. And Isabella."

One text to Alice, and I know enough people will show so that it doesn't look made up on the spot.

"Can I come?" Max asks me when we get in the car.

"Where?"

"To your party."

"Um..."

He drops his head.

"Look, invite Josh over and you guys can hang out in the pool house. Play the 360. But nobody else gets in there, you hear?" He's nodding fast.

"Nobody."

"Nobody," he says.

"And once you're in there, you stay in there, right?"

"Right."

I don't tell him not to tell Dad. I really don't care at this point.

"If Isabella doesn't come, I'm throwing everyone out," I say to Max for no particular reason. Just thinking out loud, I guess.

He seems happy to be in on it.

"You'll help me out with that," I say. "Won't you, Bro?"

"You know it." He shoves the last of his hotdog into his mouth.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you for reading! :)


	35. Roots

**In the Debris**

**Roots**

**Edward**

Esme's mom's house is not what I expect. Not that I was expecting anything, but I absolutely did not expect it to be five times bigger than our house or to have an entryway as big as my garage. I actually find myself mentally picturing my cars in here.

"Don't be shy," Esme says to all of us, motioning for us to follow her. We let our father go first and trail after.

She leads us to a sitting room with high ceilings, big mirrors, and bright light coming in through a row of three glass doors all leading to the back yard.

"We need one of those!" Max says, his face almost pressed to the glass. He's looking out at the swimming pool and pointing up at the arched glass dome over the top of it.

"We do," my father says.

"More trouble than it's worth," says a woman's voice behind us. "You have to hire someone to clean something nobody ever uses. That pool. Who swims in it anymore? A waste."

She's in a wheelchair, gray hair in a knot on top of her head. My father goes over to her and kisses her cheek.

Esme introduces her as Grandma Platt. It's weird.

"You finally bring home grandchildren and they're already adults."

At my side, I feel Max stand taller.

"What's wrong with you, Esme? You skipped the best parts. Come," she says to Max and me, waving her long, wrinkled fingers at us.

We step closer. She opens her arms. Max and I exchange a glance and a shrug and lower ourselves into her hug.

For lunch, we're brought to the dining room where a huge, overdone chandelier hangs over the center of the table. This room is also bright with glass doors leading outside. I'm beginning to wonder if every room has doors like this.

The lunch is set up restaurant-style. Double-decker club sandwiches sliced into fours with toothpicks stuck in them are bordered by salad and some kind of gold rice, and beside each plate is a bowl of fruit.

While we're eating Grandma Platt tells us she was just giving Esme a hard time about grandchildren. "She never could have children," she tells us. "Better to laugh about something you can't help than torment yourself with it, I say."

I look across at Esme, who I'm realizing I really don't know at all. Was she married before? Did she try having kids? Questions I can't ask her right now.

"Carlisle and I have talked about adoption," Esme says before taking a bite from her fork, and my eyes are everywhere: on Max, my dad, Esme, back to Max. I'm grabbing at the back of my neck before I can even stop the urge. I sit back in my chair, dropping my sandwich to my plate. There's no way I'm eating now. I chew on my tongue just to keep myself from saying something sarcastic like, _Have you _met_ my father? You want him to be a dad? Again? _"But we've decided against it," Esme continues, and I relax. "The boys are enough." She reaches out and squeezes Max's shoulder and then smiles at me.

This is what happens when a family eats meals together. You get to know each other.

I think I've had Esme pegged all wrong. She loves my father, and Max, too. And probably me, or she's trying to. But especially Max. And then I feel pretty ashamed because what I've done to Esme in my mind is sort of like what my father's done to Bella. I made assumptions, and never bothered to find out the truth. Definitely not eating.

"Don't you like your lunch?" Esme's mother asks me.

"I do," I say, and it comes out raspy. "It's really good." But I'm still not going to eat it.

On the ride home I ask Max about Esme. He tells me that she was married once before but that it didn't last long. Then he asks me a question that makes me regret bringing the subject up at all.

"Do you think Dad and Esme were together when Mom was still alive?"

I turn the music down. It would be easy to just say that I don't know, or that I haven't thought about it. But I have thought about it and I do know.

"Edward?"

Bro. I wish he'd call me Bro right now.

"Um..."

"They were?"

"I think so. Yeah, bud."

From the corner of my eye I see him rub over his face.

"They weren't... I mean, Mom and Dad had their problems. But that, that has nothing to with us so, I think - I think..." I have nothing else to say. There's no way I'm telling him what our father told me about our mother.

"You think what?"

I glance at him. "I think we should do what Grandma Platt says." I sort of smirk when I say _Grandma Platt_. "You know? Don't worry over something we can't change."

"Laugh about it?"

"No, not that. Just, I guess, let it go?" I change the subject, and maybe I shouldn't. Maybe that's wrong. But I do. "Give Josh a call. Tell him we'll pick him up on our way home. Hey, and tell me about this girl Kate. She's the girl you're into? She likes you?"

I look over at him and he's smiling at his lap. "Yeah."

I grab his shoulder and give him a little shake. "Ask her out. I'll drive you. I'll be your chaperone."

He laughs. "Yeah, right."

"What, you don't want me around?"

"Maybe." He turns his head and looks out the window and I hope he's smiling. I think he is.

.

I don't have to take Max up on his offer to help me clear out the party because Bella does show up. She's here with James and Victoria. I spot James mixing a drink for her at my father's bar.

"Not driving, are you?" I say to her, bumping her arm with mine.

"Hey, Edward."

I'm like the liquid in her glass when she says my name.

"Come with me?" I pick up her drink and hope she follows me and the drink outside. We stop by the pool where there are fewer people. It's quieter.

"Of course all these people show up at Edward Cullen's last minute party." She takes the drink from me.

She knows the party's for her.

I nudge her with my elbow to follow me a little farther, up to the deck. We lean against the railing looking out at the pool. The light isn't on and the water looks black. No one else is around.

Facing each other, we stare for a little while before Bella asks, "What are we doing out here all by ourselves?"

"What's up with the snow dome? Why'd you give it to me?"

She takes a swallow of her drink. Maybe a couple more of those and she'll tell me. There's my truth serum. She sets the serum down on the railing.

"I just wanted you to have it."

"That's it?" I step a little closer to her, trying to read her eyes. When she breathes out, I feel it on my throat.

"Does there have to be another reason?" She's looking up at me and if I just lower myself a little more—which, as I'm thinking it, I'm doing. Our faces are lined up. I move an inch closer, maybe a half inch. She does the same. I move again, closer. My heart pounds. I'm afraid she'll back away or leave. She moves in. Our lips are almost touching. They're that distance away from each other where you can feel the other person's body pull without actually touching. Maybe a sheet of paper can fit between us. Just one more move forward and I'll feel her lips. Do I risk it? Her breath is on me. I swallow it, wait for another one. Someone leans in.

Her lips are on mine. I'm convinced she's the one who leaned in. Our mouths are still. They're just touching. I reach for her waist and when my hand lands there under her jacket, my mouth is moving against hers, and _man_, it's been so long.

It's a slow kiss. I grip her tighter against me and we both exhale when our chests touch. Our kiss is picking up momentum. Pretty soon we'll be too far gone.

"Edward," she says, breaking away for just the amount of time it takes for her to say that and then she's kissing me with so much pressure that I stumble backward. Actually, she's pushing me, sometimes stepping on my toes because I'm not moving fast enough for her. I keep backing up, my arms around her waist, until I'm against the house. My mouth slips down her jaw and she raises her neck, inviting me to her throat, hands pulling on my shoulders.

"Bella," I breathe against her neck, and I have to look at her. I move my face to hers and when I see her, she's crying. It's silent. Just tears. "What's wrong? You want this, don't you?"

"Too much," she says.

My hands in her hair, we kiss again. Her arms reach around my neck. Pulling from the kiss, she hugs me, her chin on my shoulder. Holding her in my arms feels just as good as kissing her. I'm not sure where we're going or where we'll end up, but I don't want any of it to stop.

There are voices behind her, and still we hug.

I lift her up to squeeze her tighter and then lower her back to the ground.

"Do you think if I tell you what I'm planning, you won't ruin it with your brain?" she asks.

I want to look at her face right now, but I won't release this hug. I rub my face against hers.

"Does it have to do with you and me?"

"Yes."

"Being together?"

"Yes."

"Do you think it'll work?"

"I don't know. Not if you ruin it. For sure not then."

"How would I ruin it?"

"By deciding it definitely won't work, and not even trying. By giving up."

"I don't want to give up on you."

"Should I tell you?"

I think about what she's said. She thinks I might ruin it if I know what she's planning, and she knows me better than anyone. "Don't tell me."

"Then stop asking. It's hard enough to keep it from you when you're not asking, but when you ask me, it breaks my heart not to answer you."

"I'll stop." I hold her tighter. Her hold tightens, too. "You're the best hugger."

"You're the best person to hug."

"What if we sneak around?"

She pulls away to look at me. "Behind your dad's back?"

"It won't be hard to sneak behind his back. He's hardly here. But we'd have to sneak behind everyone's back. Even Victoria and James for now. He says people talk to him. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure he can find out anything he wants to around here."

"What if he finds out? What will he do?"

"I don't know. I never know with him." I bring her hand to my lips. "Listen to me, okay? I haven't taken a cent from him since we broke up. I took my cars back and I live in the pool house, but that's it. All my money comes from working at the bookstore. So if he finds out we're together without money, then he has to know, right? On some level he'll have to know it isn't about the money. I know you hate that, but that's how it is. Just say yes." I hold her face. "Be My Bella again." I kiss between her eyebrows. "Say yes."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why aren't you taking his money?" She plays with the end of her jacket sleeve.

I pick up her hand, alternating it in mine from one to the next, rubbing lightly against her skin. "Because I thought about it, and I don't want a reward for us ending. I couldn't take it. I just couldn't. And I pretty much let him know, so he's stopped offering it."

She slips her hand from mine and touches my face. I close my eyes.

"Say yes," I say again. "Just until whatever you're planning starts to work. Then we'll tell him. _I'll_ tell him."

"Until it starts to work? That's so much better than you trying to stop me."

"Say yes."

Smiling, she reaches her hand out for a handshake. "Book buddies?"

I shake her hand. "That's right." I pull her toward me and kiss her again.

I think it's dark enough that if anyone sees us kissing over here, they wouldn't know who it is.

"Max can't know," I say between a kiss. I feel bad, but he's the one who spilled about the experiment. He doesn't fully understand the extent of the problems between me and our father.

The thought of Max reminds me of where he is. I can't bring Bella to the pool house. Can't bring her in the house. I'd bring her into the forest if the ground wasn't so wet and there wasn't the chance of someone stumbling on us.

"Will you go back inside and find James and Victoria? Let people see you hanging out without me. But stay until the end of the party. Will you? Be the last one here."

"How? James is my ride."

"Maybe you can pretend to leave with Alice and whoever she came with. Walk out with her, and then walk away from her at the last minute."

"Where will I go then? Up a tree?"

I laugh. I hadn't thought that far ahead. "Let me… you go inside and let me try to relocate Max and Josh."

"Then what?"

"When you walk away from Alice, stick to the dark shadows, and come to the back of the pool house."

"There's no door back there."

"I'll be there waiting."

She kisses me once more and turns to leave. But when she's about a foot away, she turns to me again. "I never stopped loving you, Edward."

"Come here, come here, come here." Pulling her by the fingers, I lift my other hand to the side of her face and I kiss her temple, her cheek, her lips. "This love doesn't stop." Reaching into my pocket I pull out the moonstone, toss it up and catch it.

"You still have it."

Nodding, I kiss her forehead, and let her go because I have to and I know I'll see her again in a little while.

I have to come up with some way to get Max out of the pool house. I have no idea what to do while the party's still happening. I decide to check on Alice, see if she's leaving any time soon.

Finding Alice isn't easy. I'm afraid she may have left already. I nod my chin as I pass Rosalie, Emmett, and then countless others. The music is loud and there's a different song playing in each room. As I pass by the bar, and into the dim living room, the two different sounds clash so bad I have to cover my ears. Between dancers jumping around like lunatics, I catch glimpses of Bella and Victoria on the theater seats. Bella has another drink in her hand.

I have to yell over the music.

"Seen Alice?" I ask, talking mostly to Victoria, although my eyes can't help but land on Bella a few times. I've got to get better at this pretending.

Victoria points to the ceiling. "With Jasper."

I raise my eyebrows.

"Let me know if you find her," Bella says. "She's taking me home."

"I can't believe you're abandoning us for Alice," Victoria says.

"I told you. I have to talk to her about something."

"Jasper?"

"Maybe."

I reach for Bella's arm as if I'm just getting her attention, but I give it a soft pinch. "I'll let you know. Will you be here?"

She nods.

By this time, I've had enough of it all. I just want to be with Bella. I find James by the stairs talking to Jared, who he used to supply, and ask him to help me clear the place out. Thanks to rumors, people are afraid of James enough to listen. The music is the first to go. James makes his "Everybody out!" announcement and people are filing out. I hold the door open bidding them adiós. Emmett decides to help out and starts pulling guys from the hallway by their jackets. He always likes to make it a physical thing. He'll probably work his way through college by being a bouncer somewhere.

I'm unsure what to do now, though, because the only people left are James, Victoria, Rosalie, Emmett, and Alice and Jasper—wherever they are. It looks like they might all be leaving at the same time. Unless I can get them all out before Jasper and Alice show their faces.

"You guys okay to drive?" I ask, just to make sure they get the point that they have to get going, too. Emmett was staggering as he threw people out and Rosalie isn't looking too sober, either. James offers to drive them home. Bella, of course, has to stick around waiting for Alice.

And then they're gone. It's just me and Bella. Alone in a room.

I clasp her hand and look around. The place is a monsoon of beer bottles and cups. I can't send Max in here.

"Damn." I rub over my forehead.

"Get some garbage bags, Cullen. We have some cleaning to do."

After a rush cleaning to rid the house of all evidence of alcohol abuse, there's still stickiness on tables and counters, but the place is decent enough for Max, at least.

"Wait here," I tell Bella. "Gotta make sure Max's room is clear. And then I'll get him out of the pool house."

Upstairs I hear noises coming from my old room. I knock a knuckle on the door, and hurry them along.

"Max is coming up," I say. And I know that even if Jasper doesn't give a damn, Alice will. If they don't get their asses out, at least they'll be quieter.

I catch Josh playing my guitar, and even after letting that go, I still have to actually give him my 360 console and some of my games just so the little fucker will agree to leave. I go back for Bella but she isn't there. I search upstairs. Alice and Jasper are gone. Maybe Bella had to disappear when they went down. Maybe she's behind the pool house to meet me. I spot a light on in there. Somehow we passed each other.

I'm inside, and there she is, jacket off, short sleeves, tight shirt. I'm about to ask how we missed each other, but my words are lost. We collide together. Mouths. Finally.

Her skin feels cold. I rub her arms to warm them, still kissing her. I don't think I'll stop that. Kissing her.

I take my shirt off, then hers, and find her lips again, my hands on her sides. As I undo her pants, I refuse to let our lips part. It's hard to get our pants off without breaking the kiss. Falling to the bed, we manage it.

On our sides we move against each other, hands exploring, both of us making noises that resemble drowning sounds, since our lips are practically glued together.

I give her a break for a breath, taking my kiss down her body as I press her to roll on her back. I don't even know where to go with my mouth or my hands because I want all of it. All of her.

My face is on her stomach moving down and she's squirming, both tugging and pushing on me, like she can't make up her mind which direction she wants me to go, either.

And I'm everywhere I can possibly be. Her stomach, her breasts, the inside of her hip, her waist, her thigh, between her legs, her breasts again.

It's perfect and frustrating at the same time because we have each other, but there's no possible way to have all of each other all at once, and that's what we both want. I know my kisses are rough, maybe too rough, but I don't soften them, sucking and pulling on her skin.

"Bella."

"Now," she says. And I get what she's saying.

Her underwear's off. My boxers are halfway down. Feet on the floor, I lay into her and she's gasping. I wrap my arms around her back and pull her to me, my face in her shoulder. And we're matching in speed, crashing against each other.

"This can't end," I say as I slam into her.

"Never stop," she says.

But I have to slow down or it'll be over too soon.

"Bella," I whisper, my voice straining as I pull out.

"What, what are you…?" She's grabbing at my shoulders trying to bring me back, but I need to take this breather, get my head on track.

"It's okay," I say. "One second." I kiss her neck. "Just a second." I drop my head to her shoulder and after a few breaths I push into her again and we're back, moving together, her fingers up my spine, her lips on my throat, and I could let myself go, but I don't. I'm going to hold out as long as she does, even if I have to take another break. I look at her. She smiles at me, and that smile, I need nothing else.

"Nothing but you," I say and then kiss her, and I won't stop kissing her until the end.

Even when I roll to my side, breathing hard, my lips still want Bella's and I can't stop touching her. My hands all over her skin. Up and down her side, her hips, her arms. She shudders.

"Cold?"

"Hot."

"True." I kiss her again.

.

When I wake up, we're sideways on the bed. The bed sheets are crumpled up beneath us, and my boxers are still around my calves. I kick them off. Bella's back is to me. She's too far away. I move up, wrap my arms around her, and she snuggles into me, holding my arms against her. Even with my legs curled up with hers, my feet are hanging off the edge of the bed.

"Mmm," she says, "you're so warm."

Starting at her shoulder, I sweep kisses up to the back of her ear, not caring when I get a mouthful of hair.

She turns around. "Hi."

"Hi."

We laugh.

"We're crazy," she says.

"What's crazy is us trying to be apart."

"Yeah."

"Your hair, Swan," I say, smiling. I smooth it down her head for her.

"Your hair, Cullen." Her fingers run through mine and my eyes close. "It looks the same as always."

We laugh again and everything feels easy.

She faces the ceiling and I rub my nose against her cheek. "You all right?"

"I didn't know it could be like that."

"That was just… we were…"

"What?"

"I don't know. It was need, I guess. It's hard to explain."

"Yeah, but need is right."

I can't help but look over her naked body, and I see marks on her. Some on her throat, her chest, her stomach and even her thighs. I left faint red and purple marks all over. Now, remembering more clearly some of what went on between us last night, I'm getting a little scared. "Did I hurt you?"

She drags fingers down my face. "No, Edward. We were both the same."

"I marked you up." I trace over a few of the hickeys I left on her throat and her chest. "I didn't mean to."

"I marked you, too." I look down at where she's touching my chest and see matching bruises.

She shifts herself, her chin rubbing against my shoulder. We lie quiet. Thoughts of her possibly leaving for Cornell flood my mind. I'm unable to get the question out of my head: Would she go? I don't want to know the answer right now. The one fact I hold on to is that no matter where she goes, her family is here. Forks is where she'll be during vacations and summers.

My arms around her tighten.

She doesn't know why.

As the sun rises, brightening the room, we have to dress. I need to sneak her out and take her home. I check on Max. He and Josh are asleep on Max's floor in sleeping bags. The TV's still on, and a game's intro is playing on repeat. I shut it off.

Jane is here, busy in the kitchen. She gives me a look, and angry or not, it feels motherly.

"Sorry," I say. It's been a long time since she's had to clean up after one of my parties. I resist telling her that Bella and I cleaned up the worst of it.

Getting out unseen is easy.

We take my mom's Volvo and roll down the drive. I rub my thumb over her wrist. I don't want to stop touching her.

I spit out the question that won't stop plaguing me. "If a spot opens for you, will you go to Cornell?" It's crazy how you can want something great for someone and not want it at the same time.

"Um… That won't happen. Being wait-listed is pretty much the same as rejection. I researched the results. Not good. Besides, I'd need student loans just to go to a regular school. Forget about affording Cornell."

"Your parents would make it happen."

She gets quiet and I wonder what she's thinking. Sliding my fingers between hers, I ask.

"I applied to Cornell for fun. I never thought I'd even get wait-listed. And before I found out I was wait-listed, I wasn't planning on college yet. You know that. I was going to take a year off for travel photography."

"But things have changed?"

"Edward…" Her voice sounds distant. I take my eyes off the road to look at her for a second, trying to gauge her expression. "It all did change my mind about college. I told my parents I'm going to Seattle U. They have a great photography program. That's all I want."

I lift her hand and kiss it several times. "We'll be close."

"Have you told your dad about Washington yet? About staying?"

"I don't talk to my dad." He'll know soon enough.

She wraps herself around my arm, her head on my shoulder.

As we come up to the main part of town, Bella ducks in her seat to hide, and I hate that she has to do this. It gives me a little relief to see her smiling, as if it's fun. Maybe it is, but something has to change or we'll end up right where we were that day in her bedroom.

From now on, I think, I'm the one who does the hiding.

When she tells me to drop her off at the end of her street, I refuse. No way. I can't even think of her walking from the end of her street to her house, like she's some piece of ass. It's a huge risk on our first day of sneaking around, but I'm taking her all the way. I know how my dad makes her feel not good enough. I'll never add to that by making her walk from around the corner.

It's still early, and if she's fast there's a chance we won't be noticed. At least we're in the Volvo, drawing way less attention than any of my other cars would.

We have to keep our kiss quick and we do, but I pull her back for one more. Then she's out of the car.

When she's halfway to her front door I remember to say it, sliding the window down. "Hey." I try to be loud enough for her to hear me, but quiet enough so that nobody else does. "Hey."

She turns and bends down so she can see me.

"I love you," I mouth. She smiles and blows me a kiss. I watch her enter the house before driving away, taking the strangest route out of her neighborhood I can find.

Thinking about what we're doing, it really isn't that different from what broke us up before. We're sneaking, yeah, but it's to hide from my dad. And I'm the one who practically begged her to do it. I would've begged if it had come to that. This is on me—_again_.

I bash the steering wheel with my palm, turn up the stereo and take off fast. I need to run.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Carlisle's voice echoes through me like footsteps in these empty halls. My jacket still in the classroom, I shiver. I was in my second class of the day, World History, when my phone buzzed an unknown caller. I pretended to leave for the bathroom to take the call.

"She's in Olympia," he says.

I lean against the wall, twirling and twisting my hair.

"I'm going to go see her today," he says.

"Why?"

"That's my concern."

"Can I go with you?"

"I don't think that's a very good idea."

"But I've been looking for her. I have questions."

He doesn't answer.

"Please?"

The pause continues.

"I haven't seen her since I was seven. I need an answer from her. One answer. I _need _it."

"I'm not taking you out of school."

"After school?"

He pauses; I chew on my fingernail. "Get permission from your aunt and meet me at my office first thing after school."

"I'm eighteen. I don't need permission."

"Get permission."

.

After explaining everything to James, I go home at lunch to talk to my aunt. Standing in the living room, her face is rigid, a block of ice. Everything frozen: her slanting eyes, her turned down lips, her eyebrows.

"I don't want you going."

"I'm going."

"Sweetheart, you don't understand. Do you know how many times I've tried to help your mother?" She shakes her head. "And into rehab she goes, only to find her way back to the same state again. There's no fixing her. It's all heartache."

"I'm going."

First her head tilts, and then tears meet her eyes, and I'm no longer looking at her. "No, Victoria." It's almost a whisper.

I stand straighter, pulling myself together so my expression doesn't give me away like hers gives her away.

"You can't stop me."

"Sweetie."

I take a step back. My face reveals nothing. "Aunt Cheri, stop shaking your head at me and stop looking at me like you feel sorry for me. If I want to go to my mom, I will."

She lifts a hand to my face. "I'm afraid for you. Afraid you'll be disappointed and heartbroken. And you will be."

I believe her, but this is something I have to do. If I don't, then I'll feel disappointed and heartbroken, but that will be my fault, for holding back. And maybe if Aunt Cheri knew my reason for wanting to find my mother, if she knew it meant drawing out who my father is, she'd understand. But I've left her in the dark about that, and it's unfair to expect her to understand what I'm doing when she doesn't have all the information.

"Okay," I say. "But I'm not really going to find my mom. I mean, not for a relationship with her, or anything like that. I just want her to tell me... who my dad is. I think she's the only one who knows. I don't think my dad even knows. And I want to know. Once and for all. So I can feel like a whole person. So just, let me go, Auntie. Dr. Cullen says I need your permission. Give me permission to find out who my dad is."

She hugs me, pulling tight. "All right, Victoria. I don't like it, but all right."

.

After school, I meet him at the hospital like he asked me to and I follow him to his car, a black Mercedes that's probably worth twice as much as our house. When I open the door, I can see my reflection in it.

He takes off and I barely feel it moving. Carlisle's a very silent man, or at least, right now he is. We don't talk. I take out my poetry book and start listing words that strike me. Even occupied by writing I can feel something as giant as spruce trees between Carlisle and me. It makes me fidget, click my tongue, tap my pen on my notebook.

He shifts the gear and clears his throat like he's going to speak, but doesn't. Miles later, he clears his throat again.

"How long have you and Edward been friends?" he asks. _He_ asks. _He's_ asking _me_ a question.

"We never really talked until the beginning of this school year."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. I guess he never thought we had anything in common until his mom - until..."

He tilts his head to look at me, and then finds the road again.

"We started to talk about our moms. That's how we became friends."

This is where the conversation lulls and threatens to stop, but I keep it going.

"Only he didn't talk much. About his mom, I mean. He mostly listened to me. It was really hard for him, I think. To talk."

"About Elizabeth?"

"Yeah."

I watch him loosen up his tie and I keep watching him.

"He's been... Edward's been a really good friend."

He cracks his window. I set the poetry book I hadn't realized I'd been holding in such a tight grip down on my lap and wrap my arms around myself. This conversation seems to be making him hot and me cold.

"Does Edward know about all this? Did you tell him?"

"He only knows about the picture. The wedding picture." I haven't told him anything else. I want questions answered first. I want to be sure about a few things before I bring anything up to him. I don't know what Edward's thinking. I don't even know if the possibility's entered his mind that his dad could be my dad. And until I'm sure either way, I don't want to plant the thought—or worry—in there for him.

"Will you tell me about my mom?" I know he must have cared about her or he wouldn't be in this car right now determined to get to her. "Was she always selfish?"

"Selfish." He turns the wheel, following a curve around the hill. "No. Looking back, she was more selfless in a misguided way. And always too young for what she was doing."

"What was she doing?"

He says that when he met her, his family had just relocated to Forks. They met at a party, hit it off, and he thought she was older.

"I thought she was sixteen," he says. He found out later she was not even fourteen yet.

"She lied about her age?"

"She didn't lie. I assumed. She seemed like everyone else. But someone... your friend's dad. Charlie Swan. He told me her age."

"You were friends with Charlie?"

"Not exactly friends." He tells me that before he knew my mom's age, he really liked her. But she was just too young. And the other guys she hung out with, Charlie and his friends, didn't seem bothered by her age the way Carlisle had been. "When I realized she wasn't going to start hanging around with people her own age I..."

"You what?"

"I decided to be her - her friend. She needed protection from herself. I could see that. But she wouldn't listen to me when I told her she was in over her head. She didn't care about that. She just wanted to have fun."

"Isabella said that Charlie tried to date my mom? Or that they might have dated?"

"I wasn't about to let that happen."

"They never dated then?"

"Not while I was around. I don't know what went on after I went away to college. Charlie had another year of high school, and your mom was a sophomore. Who knows. A lot more went on than even I know. Obviously." He gestures to the road in front of him, and I know how much is in that gesture.

I prompt him to give me more. He says they stayed in touch while he was away at school, but by the time he started dating Elizabeth, he and my mom had begun to grow apart.

"She came to see you before she left, though. Did she say why she was leaving?"

He looks at me and simply says, "You."

I look away from him.

"I tried to talk her into staying, but she was convinced she could give you a better life in California. I don't know where she got that idea. I only know that she'd always talked about going there." He says she told him she wanted to make the earth move and California was the place for that.

"She was a dreamer," I say.

"That she was."

Like me, I think. Or I'm like her, I guess. I realize you have to keep your dreaming under control. You can't lose your reality. And maybe that's just what she did. Maybe that's why drugs appealed to her so much. High on whatever, she could dream as much as she wanted. You don't ever have to face reality if you keep yourself in a state like that all the time.

"Which is why, she had told me once," Carlisle says, "she wasn't going to make any commitments to anyone here in Washington. So you can guess how thrown I was when she told me she was pregnant."

"I think you're the only one she told."

"I think you're right."

I don't know why I say it, but the words tumble from my mouth as I think them. "You're not my dad."

His glance flicks to me and back to the road. "It's an impossibility."

"It is?"

"Yes, it is."

I watch the road out my windshield. It keeps curving. Curving and curving. It had rained recently, the roads wet, the hillsides thick with mud. "Do you know who is?"

"I'm sorry. I don't. Like I said, your mother and I weren't as close after I married Elizabeth. And before she came to tell me she was leaving, I hadn't talked to her in months."

"Did you ask her?"

"Of course I did. She ignored the question."

The conversation wanes. I open my book and write a poem about how people can have graveyards inside of them full of skeletons, and how talking about the past reveals our bones.

.

We make three stops along the way. One for pizza, one for Carlisle to get a coffee and me to get a coke, and one for gas. It's strange to see someone like Carlisle Cullen pumping gas.

The pizza is my choice. I wonder if he regrets giving me the choice in the end with this pizzeria's wooden table and benches, its sticky tile floor. He sits across from me and eats the pizza just the same. I think of asking him if he ever takes Edward and Max out for pizza, but I don't want to make him mad.

Over dinner I learn that Carlisle knows a lot about how to make small talk. He asks me about college, and I tell him I haven't decided.

"You sound like Edward. Seniors in high school," he says, shaking his head, "and you don't know. What is wrong with schools today? My son asks why everyone is expected to know what they want to do. I ask, why is it so acceptable not to know?"

"Maybe you've just forgotten what it's like to be a teenager and not know everything."

"See, if you can make bold statements like that, you can make decisions about college. Teenagers are short-sighted_. _If they don't want to examine a topic or subject, they don't. But when it's a subject they feel strongly about, they examine the hell out of it."

"Same with adults," I say, thinking of my aunt. She didn't want me to come because she was afraid for me. She couldn't see past the possibility that I might find something real for myself that would transcend any pain that might come along with it.

.

It's almost eight when we pull up at an apartment complex and Carlisle cuts the engine. "You're staying here," he says. "I let you come this far, but I have no intention of bringing you in there until I know for sure what I'm walking into. I'll be right back."

Nothing can occupy my mind while I wait. Music doesn't distract, writing doesn't help, words don't make sense. They might as well be numbers. I keep my eyes on the last place I saw Carlisle until I see him there again, with my mom in his arms, stringy hair, hanging down. I turn straight ahead and cover my eyes.

The noises I hear: a car door opening, clothing sliding against leather, human sounds like breathing, a grunt, and then a door closing.

I let my hands fall away from my face, but I keep my eyes aimed straight ahead.

Carlisle gets in.

"She's okay," he says. "She's on methadone, but her dose is too high."

"H-how do you know?"

He pulls a pill out of his pocket to show me.

"I mean, how do you know her dose is too high?"

"By looking at her."

A man knocks on Carlisle's window, brown curls falling in his face. "You can't just take her," he says. "I'll call the police."

"She'll be free to come back if that's what she chooses," Carlisle says. He backs the car up. "Get out of the way." He raises his window and the man steps aside.

"What's methadone?" I ask.

He doesn't answer right away.

"A drug."

"It's a treatment for addiction to opiates, and, in your mom's case, I think heroin."

I take a shuddering breath. "Where are you taking her?"

"Back to Forks." He takes off into the night, leaving that man in his dust. "To the hospital."

"No hospitals," comes her voice from the back, slurred and grainy.

"You'll be made more comfortable," Carlisle says. "I'll get you a specialist. There are other treatment options you'll want to consider."

Holding my breath, my face cold, I turn around and peek at her. We make eye contact. My eyes are probably as wide as hers are wilted.

She sees me, though, through droopy lids.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi."

She sees me, but doesn't recognize me.

Under passing streetlights her hair looks like straw, she's alabaster pale, the skin under her eyes dark. Her eyes close the rest of the way and her head nods. Looking at her makes me feel vomit in my throat.

I face forward again.

"She's going to be okay," Carlisle says. "I know it's frightening, but it's just a high dose. Not an overdose. All right?"

I know I've laughed before. I know it. But in this moment I can't remember what it's like, and there's this feeling that the world is in my throat, and it's so thick and full that I'm sure I'll never laugh again. There's no room.

Tears that I don't want Carlisle to see drip down my cheeks.

Carlisle squeezes my fist and I look at him. He's shaking his head, and for a second I think this is a judgmental headshake. But there's something in his eyes that remind me of how Edward's look sometimes. A sadness in them. Hidden. I wonder what Edward would think if he could see his dad now.

With shaking hands, I struggle to get my phone out of my bag and I call James.

"Tell me something," I say, my voice as quiet as possible, my elbow on the door, my eyes out the window. Rain splashes and zig-zags down glass.

"Victoria?" His voice is concerned, he can hear my tears. "Are you okay?"

I don't answer. My lips and chin quiver. I rub tears into my jeans.

"I love you," he says. "Did you find your mom?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Is she okay?"

"I don't know." It's a whisper.

"Are you?"

"We're on our way home. She's with us."

"Text me when you get there," he says.

"Stay on?"

"As long as you want, Beautiful Red."

"Talk," I whisper.

"I don't know what to say." After a short silence he starts singing lyrics from The Clash, and I feel the beginning of a laugh in my chest, but it turns into sobbing. Real sobbing.

"Victoria. I'm sorry. I wish I was there with you. My arms are around you, baby. Okay? I'm here. Close your eyes. I'm right here."

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: Thank you for reading and being awesome. A couple of weeks ago_ In the Debris_ made it to the top seven at The Lemonade Stand. Thank you to Twific Crackmum for the rec, and to everyone who voted. That was so exciting!

I'm feeling a little sad. We're closing in on the end.

Also, in case you didn't know, I posted an E/B one-shot that I wrote for the Fandom for Twi-Fan G compilation. You can find it in my profile. It's called _The Girl in the Blue Dress_, and it won't hurt. :)

Happy premiere day!


	36. Floret

**In the Debris**

**Floret**

**Victoria**

Lampposts lining the harbor cast streams of light over the night-black river. I watch gold and copper walk on water as we pull into town. Dragging my eyes from the river's trance back to the road, I direct Carlisle to my street. He wanted to drop me off at home, thinking it was safer if I didn't drive while upset, and I assured him that I could pick up my aunt's car in the morning.

"Your mom will be better tomorrow. On a lower dose she'll be much more coherent. You can ask her what you need to ask her then."

I thank him for everything, open my car door, lift my backpack over my shoulder, and glance one more time at my mom, slouched like a rumpled blanket in the backseat. She appears to be sleeping, but I know she isn't. She's drugged.

She's drugged because if she wasn't she'd be going through withdrawals. She depends on these pills just to live. And she isn't even doing that right now.

There are no cars in the driveway, but there's a glow from the window, so I assume my aunt is home. Mud must be working the late shift. I twist the key in the lock and let myself inside.

It isn't my aunt who greets me, though. It's Mud I see as I enter the living room.

"Victoria," he says.

I stop at the edge of the sofa, my fingers digging into its arm. "Carlisle's bringing her to the hospital. She's... not good."

"I'm sorry." He scratches at his unshaven jaw. "I wish I'd known where you were going. I would've taken you to her. Why don't you talk to us like you used to? Tell us what's going on?" He steps forward, reaching out to me. I step back and a frown takes over his face.

I return his frown. "Where's Aunt Cheri?"

He doesn't answer, but he's starting to look at me in that intense way he does that makes my skin feel trampled over by thousands of bugs. I feel it from my arms all the way up to my scalp. I'm really in no mood to tolerate this tonight.

"Why do you always have to look at me? Stop looking at me!"

"What?" he asks as if he has no idea what I'm talking about.

"You know what I mean. I know you do. And I know you've come into my room at night. You creep me out and if you keep doing it, I'm telling Aunt Cheri."

I run up to my room, slam the door, and drop my backpack on the floor. It falls like it's a pile of rocks, or like it's me. I open the front pocket to fish out my phone and text James. He'd remained on the line for me until my battery came too close to running out. After the text is sent, I plug my phone in to charge it before sliding my poetry book from my bag. I'm still using the one James gave me for my birthday. I trace the carved V. My finger moves down and up, down and up. He'll be here soon.

There's a soft rap at my door. "I'm not coming in," Mud says. "Will you meet me downstairs?"

I open the door, tell him to stay where he is, and I sit down at my desk. "James is on his way over." I don't look at him when I talk. I'm looking at the poetry book still in my hand.

"Cheri told me what you hoped to learn tonight."

"Yeah, but I know about as much now as I did when I was seven so..."

From the corner of my eye I can see him shifting. "Victoria, I - I'd like to show you something." He holds his hand out, a photograph between his fingers.

I stand up and take it from him.

He squats down against the doorjamb, his arms resting over his knees. "I didn't mean to scare you. I-"

"Why are you giving me a picture of Mary?" Mary is Phil's sister. She passed away at nineteen. Leukemia. Of course I've never met her, but I used to like looking through my aunt and uncle's old photo albums while they told me stories of their relatives.

I put my attention back on the photo. Mary's hair is straight and brown. I don't see the resemblance at first, but the longer I stare, it becomes obvious that she looks a little like me. The roundness of the end of her nose, the line of her mouth, the chin a little pointy, the cheekbones. Eyes locked on the picture, I touch my face.

"You see it?" he asks.

Fingers moving from my cheek, over my lips to my chin, I nod. My mind seems to be on pause, although I know exactly what he's saying. But how? And why?

"I thought it was a coincidence at first, the similarities. After her death—I was only seventeen—I used to see her in people. From a distance, the back of someone, a girl's profile, long brown hair. But when I looked again... My eyes were playing tricks. Maybe somewhere inside I was hoping I'd run into her."

I almost look at him, but can't tear my gaze from the picture. Another aunt. A real aunt.

"A couple of years back I started to see her in you. I thought it was my mind playing tricks again. I'd take a second look, and your expression would change, and she was gone. I brushed it off. But the older you got... as you continued to mature, I started to see her even in the shape of your shoulders and the way you walk. I didn't know until recently, when I really started thinking about the **-** well - that it could be plausible. I thought about your birthday. The year you were born. The months back."

I knew that the search for my father could end painfully, but because of things like drugs, or him not being interested in knowing me, or my never finding him at all. But this outcome had never once entered my realm of possibilities. This is a whole new stratosphere. Even the air tastes different. Is this still oxygen I'm breathing?

"What about Aunt Cheri?" I feel tears building under my eyelids.

"I hadn't met her yet. We married in '96, you know that. You would've been three."

"She doesn't know?" I'm looking at my lap but I can picture the look on his face by the sound of his voice—drawn, eyes downcast, lips downturned.

"She does now."

"You didn't tell her before. That you had a relationship with her sister?"

"It was only once. I didn't even know her last name at the time."

"Okay. But you knew who she was eventually."

"Cheri and I had been dating for a while by then. I already loved her. I didn't think any good would come of telling her. What would be the point? It would do nothing but hurt her."

I think about how I would feel if I had a sister who James slept with and never told me about. I turn to Phil, meeting his eyes. He's very still. "It must've sucked really bad when you realized you'd have to tell Aunt Cheri the truth."

He starts shaking his head before I even finish talking. "No, Victoria. We raised you. We both love you._ I_ love you. When I started counting back the months, I was hoping, all right? Confirming it made me happy. But I didn't know how to tell you or Cheri, or how either of you would take it. I must have planned it a hundred times in my mind." His hand meets his furrowed brow like he has a headache.

"Where is she?"

"The lodge."

"Is she - is she coming back?"

"She'd never leave you. But as far as leaving me, I don't know. I hope she comes back. I can't imagine my life without the two of you in it." There are tears in his eyes, and I drop my head, looking down at my lap again, taking a deep breath.

"I'm going wherever she goes. And I'm not calling you Dad."

I pick my backpack up off the floor and push past him, leaving him, now standing, in my doorway. At the top of the stairs I turn back. "You've known when my birthday was all along. How come you didn't figure it out before?"

He's wiping at his eyes. His voice sounds like his throat's trying to hold it back, like his voice is resisting being swallowed. "You were two before your mom told Cheri about you. She said your father was someone she met in Arizona. I never had a reason to consider the dates. And it's not something that - it's not the sort of thing you mark on a calendar. A one night..." He looks away from me.

I walk straight down the stairs and out the front door where I wait in the dark on the sidewalk for James. Minutes go by, the blowing wind chilling the tears on my face. I push them aside before they become icicles. A pair of headlights turn down my street and I watch him stop at the curb, watch him rush to get out of the car, hair in his eyes.

I'm in his arms fast. His chest is firm against my head, and it's almost as if I haven't felt him in weeks. His arms clamp tight around me, and he rocks me back and forth some, saying my name a few times.

"Your mom?" he says into my hair. "Where is she?"

"He isn't Mud."

"What?" I feel his hand at the back of my neck.

"He's my - my..."

There's silence for a long time, crickets, wind, no voices, until finally James speaks up."He's your...?"

"My dad."

Releasing me to my shoulders, he looks down at me, lines creasing between his eyebrows, his mouth opening for words that don't come out. I know what that feels like. Is his throat constricting? Is his mind racing? Can he feel his pulse in his fingertips?

"He didn't know." I give him the best explanation I can in this moment, trying to explain how Phil's strange looks were him recognizing pieces of the truth, trying to work them into a whole.

"What do you want to do?" It's all up to me, he says, and it is. Everything is up to me.

I look at the house, this house I grew up in—day in, day out for twelve years—and it looks different, like it's balancing on a cloud. I've lived here thinking I at least knew one thing for sure, one truth I could count on, who my aunt and uncle were. But now I know, all these years, this house, where I lived, was my father's house. The man who built a dam with me, who called me Little One, who looked at me, not because he was a slime, but because he was piecing together who I was, who he was, who we were to each other.

"I want to go back in." Sliding my hand into his, I bring him with me. His fingers close over mine, holding tight.

Inside, Phil—my dad—is on the sofa with his head in his hands.

When he hears us, he looks up and we stare at each other.

"Hello, James," he says, but his eyes, circled in red, are still on mine.

"Why didn't _you_ go to the lodge?" I ask him. "Why did Aunt Cheri have to go?"

"I told her I would go. She wanted me to be the one to tell you. Since you were, since you were searching for... me, I guess."

"I'm going there tonight. She must be so sad right now."

He closes his eyes and tears drip down his face. He nods.

James comes with me to my room as I pack some clothes for the night. I start throwing things in my backpack, run to the bathroom for my toothbrush, and then back to my room to my underwear drawer. James closes the door.

"Victoria. Victoria, slow down." He takes me by the arms.

"I have to get to her."

"I know but-" he squares my shoulders "-you're worried about her, right? Well, I'm worried about you. Are you okay?"

I look up at him but don't answer. There's no answer to that question.

"On the phone you were-"

"I know."

He holds my face and kisses my cheek. Pulling me to sit on the bed, he wraps his arms around me, tucking my head into his shoulder. "Just take a breather." He kisses my forehead and then the corner of my eye. His lips rest there.

I feel as though I've just settled into a hot tub. My heartbeat starts to slow, my breathing evening out.

"Remember the night of Lauren's Halloween party?" I feel his lips move on my face, his breath.

"You wore my wings."

"I had such a mad-crush on you I would've worn your wings to school the next day if you asked me to."

"You would've let me make you look like a fool?"

"No. I didn't care about what anyone thought but you." He kisses me again right at the edge of my eye. And I think that is how life is; you're always on the edge of something. James and I spent years on the edge of a relationship until we decided to step off the edge and fall into it. I was on the edge of finding a father, and now that I've found him, I have to make a decision. Will I back away from the edge or step over it, immerse myself into the unknown?

James drives me to the lodge, walks me to my aunt's room and after I knock, he kisses me goodbye. "I'll wait right over here until you go in." He points toward the end of the hall with the yellow-flowered wallpaper. "I'll call you tomorrow."

When my aunt opens the door, I glance at James and wave low.

"He told me you were coming." She kisses my cheek. "It's late."

She's wrapped in a robe, and while her eyes look sleepy, they don't look like they've had a wink of sleep.

"Not like I'm going to school tomorrow, anyway." I follow her into the dim room. The glow from the bedside lamp is so lazy it would never make the trek to the opposite wall if not for the mirror above the dresser. Still, there are corners in the room untouched by light. The bed covers have been thrown back on one side, the other side perfectly intact. "Go back to bed," I say, digging through my bag for my nightshirt. After changing I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and then climb under the covers with my aunt. I slide my hand across to her arm, holding.

She scoots a little closer.

"Are you going to forgive him?" I ask.

"It's not a matter of forgiveness."

"What do you mean?" My eyes are beginning to adjust to the dark. Her skin looks pale, but I can't see the blue of her eyes.

"Whatever happened between them, it was before, and nobody can regret it or wish it didn't happen. Nobody can be angry about it, because it brought you into the world."

"Auntie... nobody would blame you for being mad about the way it happened."

"I'm not."

"Then why are you here and not there? If it isn't about forgiveness, what's it about?"

"Trust."

"Mmm."

"He never told me."

"How come he didn't know who your sister was for so long?"

"Mom was sick and didn't like having visitors around. We spent most of our time at his house. I didn't invite him home until things were serious, and then there were pictures, I guess. He must've known then, but never said. But Victoria, listen, that's between me and Phil. That's our problem to work out. You can't burden yourself with it. Or use that as a reason to hate him. Okay?" she says, pushing hair from my face. "Okay?"

I nod. "So then you're my stepmom." I smile at her because that's good news to me, and she grasps my hand under the sheets. "I'm the redheaded stepchild."

"All us Mayes girls have red hair," she says. "But yours is the reddest." She lets that segue into asking me about my mom and I fill her in until my voice is like fading light, dimming, flickering out, gone.

I've never spent the night in a room at the lodge before. The bed is as comfortable as any bed, the pillows soft, and the room is warm. It's an easy place to fall asleep. At least, I think I sleep. I'm not sure if the memories behind my eyes are sleep-dreams or wakeful visions. I remember Uncle Phil teaching me to ride a bike, holding on to the seat for me. I remember him adding a light to it, the only way I was allowed to ride it at night. I remember him holding my hand, walking me along the lake shore, letting me put my feet in even though the water was freezing. Just because I wanted to. Just because I begged. I remember him coming into my room that one night, touching my face. My dad, touching my face. Was that the day he figured it all out? That touch on my face scared me like nothing else back then, but now I see it differently. It was tender. It was affection. If learning the truth didn't exactly make him happy, there were definite emotions stirred.

.

My mom's in an outpatient program through the hospital, and staying in a house with a few other people who are also in outpatient programs. Carlisle explained that they're weaning her off methadone by lowering the dose little by little. If they were to take it from her cold-turkey, she'd have worse withdrawals than those caused by heroin. She's traded one addiction for another.

Aunt Cheri and I go together to visit her. Her room is bright with one big window, the shade pulled up, and it's actually sunny out. She looks better than she did in the car. Much better. Her hair is clean, amber curls to her shoulders, her face bright, but her eyes are still dark underneath. She wipes there, like she can feel my gaze. People have said I look like her and I try to see it. I guess it could be true if not for the hollowness of her eye sockets and cheekbones, her thin neck, her protruding collar bone peeking from the V of her blouse. None of us say anything for too long.

I lean back against the wall just to move. My mom speaks first.

"Hi Cheri." There's no smile. Her eyes turn to me. "Victoria." She moves closer and places her hands on my shoulders. "You look beautiful." She pulls me into a hug. I feel as though I'm being embraced by nothing but bones. My arms hang at my sides. I remember this feeling—being hugged by such thin arms. She smells like soap. Slow-moving, she walks to her bed and sits down on the edge. Her hands squeeze the comforter and then release it. She's looking at my chest or my neck, not my face. "I moved to Washington, and planned to get straight for you. I was going to see you graduate."

My aunt and I have yet to utter a sound.

"Do you still write poetry?" Her eyes drift from me to Aunt Cheri.

"Y-" I clear my throat. "Yes."

"Good. I'd love to read some. Sometime."

I don't know why she's acting like we're here to catch up, like it's only been a few months or something since we last laid eyes on each other.

"Why didn't you tell anyone who my dad is? Why didn't you even tell Phil?"

She stands, fumbles through her purse, pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and with a shaky hand lights one up. She looks so breakable and I have trouble caring. She doesn't speak until after she sets the lighter on her nightstand and a takes a few puffs, and when she does I have to strain to hear her. "I didn't know him." She takes another drag and shakes her head as the smoke comes out. "Peter and I weren't talking. With Phil it was just one of those things. Right place, right time. Or wrong place, wrong time."

"So you left?"

Her face tenses. "My family was just waiting for me to screw up, and I did, didn't I, Cheri? I lived up to all your expectations."

"We believed in you more than you think, but now isn't the time for that. Address your daughter."

She continues to look at Aunt Cheri, though. "After I got their wedding invitation and saw his name, there was just no way. I couldn't..."

"But what about after? When I was _living_ with them?"

My mom's eyes look all around the room, but it's like she's not seeing any of it. "I don't know. It... I told myself it was enough that he was raising you. How many lives had to be ruined because of me? Like Cheri said, it was best if I just stayed away." She smashes a half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray at her bedside.

"But it was my life, too. Mine."

She nods, looking down but doesn't say anything.

"You like to play. I know enough about you to know that. But you played with my life. I'm not a doll. I never was. But you treated me like one."

She lights up another cigarette. And I notice that the ashtray is full of half-smoked or even quarter-smoked ones.

"I was wrong about myself. I had real plans. I had dreams of a future for you, a great one. But, as real as they felt inside, I couldn't realize them."

"Your problem," Aunt Cheri says, "is that you've never understood consequences."

"I don't understand consequences?" She raises her voice, walking toward Cheri. "I had my daughter taken from me at five years old. I loved her more than anything and I had to force myself to stay away from her, for her own good. I had to protect her from _me_. You don't think that's the worst consequence there could be? Imagine her taken from you. Imagine being told she's better off if she never sees you again. And believing it. Knowing it's true, Cheri!"

Cheri, seeming unaffected by my mom's outburst, is calm in voice and manner. "And the drugs kept you apathetic."

Eyes on the floor, my mom says, "They took the pain away. I couldn't feel pain or regret. But it always comes back. I'm filled with it. It's in every inch of my body, every second that I'm sober."

I open my backpack and pull out the picture that started everything, my search for my dad and all of this. It's the picture I'd written the poem on. I hand it to her. She gazes at it for a little while and then looks up at me.

I'm on another edge here, and this one I'm backing away from. Charlotte had backed away from our edge first, though, seventeen years ago, and then she continued backing away until she was so far she almost didn't exist.

So I say, "I hope you get clean. I do. I hope you stay clean. But you're just Charlotte to me. Someone I don't know. Not my mom. This is my mom." I pick up Cheri's hand.

I walk out. Aunt Cheri follows. My mom has the picture and the poem. She said she wanted to read one, well there it is. She can read it and know everything I want to say to her without my having to say it.

Heading back to the lodge, sunlight fills the whole car. It makes me squint. I think about how my life turned out. How different would it have been if I hadn't been taken from her? Where would I be right now?

I remember back to the time I first met Uncle Phil, driving from Arizona to Washington. He'd stopped for ice cream. "What's your favorite kind?" he asked.

I told him bubblegum, and he had to go to three different places before he found it. I'm sure he would've kept searching if he hadn't found it at the third place. He was trying to cheer me up even when I didn't really understand that I needed cheering up. I was sure that by the next day or the day after that I'd see my mom again. We'd be dancing around the house. I'd go back to Mrs. Shelley's class.

I think about the red circles around Phil's eyes, and what they encase. Much more than guilt over a kept secret swells inside those circles. They carry in plain sight the fear of loss—the fear of losing Cheri and me both at the same time.

Aunt Cheri said she couldn't resent how I came into the world. And with the only mother I know or want next to me, I realize I can't resent how things turned out, either. I tell her this.

"Let's go get our bags and go home." She says that maybe life didn't unfold in the most ideal way, but it's ours. "It's the life we have," she says, hands on the wheel.

This time I decide to step over the edge and see where I land. We both do.

Out my window I notice flowers along the road as if they've popped up overnight. I know that can't be true. Funny how in California it seemed spring had come too soon, while here it seems to have snuck up on me. I hadn't even noticed spring happening. It's just here, sunlight diving between trees and swimming through my window, settling on my lap as if it's found a new home, like it's planning on staying, like Forks is where it belongs. But everyone here knows better. It could be raining within the next hour, within the next few minutes. I slide the window down, squinting as the sun and wind hit my face at the same time. I won't let myself think of the sun and the arrival of spring as any kind of sign. But the truth is, whether or not the events of the past twenty-four hours were what I wanted or hoped for, they landed in my lap just like the sun.

* * *

><p><strong>Edward<strong>

Lectures on grammar are usually enough to knock me out, but today in English Comp when Mrs. Dean explains the use of the comma versus the use of the semi-colon, it reminds me of Bella and me and where we are now. In sneaking around, we're really not seeing much of each other. This place we're in has to be nothing but a pause, I tell myself, a comma between two clauses. We just have to get to the other side, the other clause, the place where we can be free together.

Because spring is here, Mrs. Makenna's lawn is once again in need of mowing. So the other day when I mowed, Bella and I met afterwards, under the bridge behind her house where we kissed our mouths raw. This is what it's come to for us to be near each other. Most of our time is spent on the phone.

Tonight I lie in bed with the phone pressed to my ear.

"I wish I could touch you right now," she says and I can feel her fingers on me. I can feel my fingers on her. "Your arms."

"Go on."

"And I miss being in a bed with you. Close to you. Your hands on me in the middle of the night. Your chest." Her voice cracks and I try to answer but my own voice gets caught like a frog in my throat.

"You want to try phone sex?"

I sit up, laughing at the blunt way this comes out of her mouth. _Her mouth_... Of course, I agree.

"Okay, wait, okay - um - I'm slipping my hand down... into your pants. Can you feel my hand, Edward?"

"Mm-hmm." My hand moves south going for the waistband of my boxers.

"I'm placing my hand around your big, long, hard, soft-"

"Wait. Is it hard or soft?"

I hear her stifling a laugh. I know she's not really into this, and I'm playing along.

"Okay, I'm holding your big, long, hard, _smooth_ phallus."

"Phallus? That's hot."

"Should I have gone with appendage?" She's cracking up. It makes me laugh, too. "This is too weird. Let's meet somewhere. We'll have car sex." She whispers "car sex" and it sounds like the wind talking.

Even though it's two in the morning and we have school tomorrow, we decide to meet at her house. I take the Volvo because it's quiet. She's waiting on the sidewalk when I come by to scoop her up in what she calls a "drive-by." She doesn't want me to stop, and gives me a scowl when I do.

"Couldn't drag you around," I say, driving off before she even has the door closed. I only turn the corner before I stop the car, get out and switch places with her.

I let her drive so if there's any ducking, I'll be the one doing it. By the time I'm in the passenger seat, she has the heat on full blast. I take off my jacket and kiss her. Her hand meets my arm, rubbing. The end of her nose touches the end of mine. "Hi Edward, Edward, Edward." She smiles.

I drop my mouth to her neck. "Hi Bella, Bella, Bella." My lips sink into her skin right below her jaw. She shivers and I know it's not from the cold. It's baking in here. I turn the heat down and she drives away.

I haven't put any music on but I'm about to until I decide silence with Bella is pretty much the best kind of silence. She heads through the twisting roads of towering trees toward the ocean cliffs. The sky is too overcast to see any stars and there's barely a moon. She parks at a lookout point, cuts the engine, and we decide to scoot the front seats all the way forward and move to the back where there's more room. Once in the back, she tosses her jacket up front next to mine and slides over to me, resting her head on my chest. Slouching lower in my seat, I put my arm around her.

"How's your phallus doing?" Her hand rubs along the side of my waist, and then her fingers give me a light scratch.

"You know how it is. Kinda hard, kinda soft."

She looks up at me. Hair has fallen over her eye and I push it aside. She reaches for my hand, holding it as she stares at me like I'm something to look at, like I might be the best thing she's seen. It's too dark to see if her eyes are lightening, but I'd bet anything they are. "I miss you." Again it's a whisper, but this time all Bella, no tunneled-wind sound

"I miss you, too." I kiss her soft and we sit in the quiet, Bella resting against me, holding my hand. I don't want to move. Ever. Moving means the clock is ticking and the time will come to go. Maybe if we sit still enough, time will be still with us.

We accidentally fall asleep.

When we wake up, my head is pushed up against the hard window, and Bella's lying with her legs bent behind her, her head in my lap, where there's also something hard going on. I touch her hair, running my fingers along the side of her head where it's softest. It's still dark out.

"My hand's on you in the middle of the night," I say, my voice hoarse, and she hums.

She sits up, stretching. I watch her lean toward the front, bending as she reaches for her phone. I hold her at her hip while she checks the time. "Five twenty," she says, landing beside me again. Her hand falls to my chest. "I liked that."

"Me, too."

"We should not have car-sex again sometime."

I smile and kiss her, and this is when our kissing gets a little out of control.

She pulls away from my mouth. "I have to get home." She comes back to my mouth.

"Your parents."

She breaks away. "My dad's probably already left for work. He's not the problem. My mom gets up at seven to wake me up."

"Why did we fall asleep?" I ask against her mouth.

"Idiots," she says, climbing over my lap.

Moving hair aside, I kiss down her neck to her shoulder until I meet fabric. I catch the end of her shirt, about to slide my hands under it when I find another shirt in the way.

"How much clothes are you wearing?"

She laughs while I slip my hand under the second shirt, rubbing her back with my fingertips first and then my palms. She feels cold under my hand, but I'll warm her. I work my way up higher. There's no bra-strap. There's no bra. Two shirts, but no bra? I'll take it. Her fingers meet my neck and climb up to my face, guiding me to her mouth. She grinds down on me and I lift to meet her.

"Can we?" I ask.

"We don't have much time."

"Don't need much time," I say on her throat, thumbs brushing her breasts. Yes, I'm coaxing. And yes, it's working. She sighs. I pull her top shirt off. Underneath is just a tank top. My lips go directly to her shoulder, kissing along her collarbone, my hands at her waist where the shirt has risen. Gripping the hem of it between fingers, I start to raise it, but she stops me and says, "Not out here." Her hands move under my shirt, then, running over my stomach, and I _can_ take _my_ shirt off, so I do.

"Cover me with your jacket."

Pulling my jacket from the front, I hold it over her waist like a barrier as she stands, hunched over, to take off her pants.

She unbuttons my jeans and I lift up so she can pull them down just enough, boxers, too.

"Definitely not soft," she says, stroking.

Slinking my hand between her legs, I touch her while she touches me and I like when the rhythm of our hands match. I like it a little too much. My breathing is heavy—heavier than hers. But she's the one who moans, and she feels ready. I move her over me and I'm in.

"God," I say and it's a grunt.

"I know."

She arches her chest toward me. I put my mouth on her breast, teasing her nipple as well as I can through the cotton. She's moving over me faster. Too fast for me to keep myself under control much longer.

I wrap my arms all the way around her, holding her as close as possible, my face against her chest.

Sex with Bella is good anytime, but when we unwillingly go without it for long, it's exceptional.

She doesn't climb off of my lap right away. She stays where she is, looking down at me. "Know what I missed while you were gone?" she asks, as if I'd been on vacation or something. "This." She touches a freckle on the side of my face and then kisses it.

"That it?"

"No, but that was the weird thing. I kept seeing it when I pictured you."

"You pictured me?" I smile at her, or more like smirk.

"Didn't you picture me?"

I drop the smirk. "Every day."

"What weird thing about me did you miss?"

I look her over, tilting my head to the side, letting my eyes pause on her ass for a little while, my hand following, gliding over her skin. But I tug on her big toe. "Your toenails."

"That is weird. Really weird."

"I mean, how they're always painted. I wondered if you still painted them."

"I didn't."

"No?"

She shakes her head. "I painted them for you." She touches my mouth.

"Why?" My lips move against her finger.

"Because, plain toenails are kind of ugly, aren't they?" Her finger brushes back and forth over my bottom lip before she takes her touch away, but I catch her hand, bringing the side of her wrist to my mouth. I give her a little bite, a nibble on her wrist.

She starts to move off me, but something seems to catch her eye out the window. "The sun's rising," she says, sitting sideways on my lap, eyes focused outside. "It's so beautiful."

I'm looking at the side of her face. Some hair's in the way, blocking most of her profile, and I push it aside, back behind her ear. "Yeah," I say.

.

After another day of school pretending not to be with Bella, and of unsuccessfully avoiding looking at her, I find Esme sniffling in the kitchen. She tries to hide what's going on by turning to wipe her eyes up quick, but I've seen enough. I could ignore it. I could keep walking. But I think this is about my father, and it makes me feel somehow partially responsible.

"What's the matter?" I put my hand against the counter, leaning forward and back, too uncomfortable to be still.

After asking a few more times she admits that it is about my father, saying that they'd had plans together but that he canceled, giving her some vague excuse about a drive to Olympia.

"An old friend, he said. A good friend. A woman."

I cock my head at her, squinting. "Charlotte?"

"You know her?"

"She's my friend's mom." I drum my index finger over the counter, remembering the wedding picture Victoria found. All three of them looked pretty happy. Knowing that my father and Esme had something going on behind my mother's back, I know Esme has to be thinking about whether or not he'd do the same thing to her. "Hey, Max's school. They're showing this movie tonight from seven to nine. I'm going. He asked me to, but do you, I mean, would you want to come?"

She looks at me like she's about to say yes, but she says no instead. "Sounds like a brother thing."

"I think he'd want you to go. I'm pretty sure it would make him happy."

She steps closer to me. And then slowly she puts her hands on my shoulders before pulling me into a hug. I'm stiff at first; we've never hugged before and it's awkward. But I just go ahead and hug her back.

"You really are something else. You know that?"

"Yeah, well, don't tell my dad."

.

Before the movie starts, the lights are already dim and the gym is rumbling with voices. Max tells me not to look right away as he points out where Kate is. I look right away. She's cute. Blonde. Little.

"Go talk to her." I nudge his arm.

"And say what?"

"Go tell her she looks pretty."

He scoffs at me and shakes his head like I've told him to kiss her in front of everybody or something.

"All right. Ask her if she liked the book."

"You want me to talk about the book?" He's dropped his head, his eyes and brows raising like I've gone mad.

I shrug one shoulder. "That's how I got Isabella."

He takes off then, going right up to Kate. I wish I could hear him. I try to read his lips, but can't. I do see her smile at him, though.

"You two have something really great," Esme says. "I didn't get along with my sister so well as a teenager."

I turn to her. "I've seen him at his saddest." I blink hard, trying not to picture it. "I never want to see him like that again."

"I have a feeling he thinks the same of you."

I nod. "Yeah. You're probably right."

"I love when he calls you Bro."

"Me too." And it's true that I don't even want him to grow up because he might stop calling me that.

.

The next day, after school, my dad comes over to the pool house with a drink in his hand, and what looks like a photo album and a newspaper tucked under his arm. He looks like he's had about as much sleep as I've had in the last couple of days. My hair's still wet from the shower I took after my run, so while I wait for him to say something, I take my towel from my shoulder and scrub it over my head a few times before throwing it in the corner on top of my crumpled sheets. He watches it land.

"Jane hasn't been by yet?"

"You're here to check up on Jane?"

He gestures to the sofa. "May I?"

"Go for it."

I notice he's wearing jeans and a long-sleeve T-shirt, ironed flat. I can't remember the last time I saw him in jeans. He looks younger but older at the same time.

I grab a Coke from the fridge and meet him back by the sofa, figuring I'm going to have to hear what he's come to say. He seems uncomfortable or nervous which makes me wonder if he's about to tell me he's messed things up with Esme.

He passes me the album I recognize right away as my baby album. Balancing it over my arm, holding my Coke, I open the first page to a newborn picture of me.

"Your mom put that together. She loved you. Proud of you from the day you were born."

I take a seat in the chair next to him, dropping my unopened Coke on the table, and turn the page: a list of Firsts in my mother's handwriting.

"Your first word was Dadda."

"That's everyone's first word."

"Not Max's. His was Doggy, remember?"

"Yeah. Mom loved that one." She was allergic to dogs. A dog was one thing Max and I couldn't have no matter how much we begged.

I turn the page again. On one side of the page, my mom's holding me, and my father's holding me on the other.

"She loved you," he says again. "Guess that's the best place to start."

I look up at him.

He takes a drink. Ice clinks. "Your mother was on her way out. She was leaving me, taking you kids with her." He sets his glass on the table in front of him, giving it a couple of turns on the table. He's really keeping an eye on his glass. "At that point I deserved it, her leaving. But the truth is, she left the marriage well before that, and back then-" he takes his eyes off the glass to look at me "-I didn't deserve it."

"And...? When would you say she left?"

"Max was nine when I learned of her infidelity," he says. I would've been fourteen. The same year money started appearing on the counter for me. My eyes sort of squint. "I was straight-forward with her and she gave me straight answers in return. I asked her why she married me. She admitted it was a mistake she couldn't see at the time. Said that the money was seductive, the lifestyle, all she could offer her future children. You." He points to me with the drink in his hand. "She told me I was good at what I did with my money. And I'll give her that. I used the money to entice her, to persuade her to - uh - fall for me. I thought it worked." He picks up his glass, shakes the ice around. There's nothing left. He sets it down. "She said she would stop seeing the other man, for the sake of you boys. Maybe she meant it. I don't know."

I'm about to tell him I don't want to hear this when he says it for me.

"Why don't we get some air? Show me that trail you run."

I lead the way. The wind is thin and weak, hardly there. Neither of us have jackets and we don't need them. I walk stiff next to my father. The farther into the woods we get, the quieter it seems and I'm actually grateful when he starts talking again.

"Look," he says. "The point is, I saw you doing the same thing with money that I did, didn't I? Before your mom passed. With your friends, your girls."

I look up at the sky. It's blue today.

"Didn't I?" It sounds much more like a statement than a question.

I nod and look at the dirt path ahead of us. I hate that we've stopped walking. If we just head straight a little farther we'll be close enough to the creek to hear it.

"The partying, the drinking, the defiance. Was I supposed to trust you at your word when you started bringing Isabella around? You bought her that camera, took her for spins in your cars, brought her to the pool house." His eyes are already on me when I turn to him. "I saw it starting. Your mom and me when we were younger. Same thing."

"Couldn't you trust me when I said I loved her?"

"At first I thought it was more defiance. Your rejection of Heidi, your adamance for Isabella. When it didn't stop, I thought you were confused about what love is."

"Thought? You don't think that anymore?"

He pulls the newspaper from his arm and hands it over. I'd forgotten he even had it. "Take a look at the front page of the sports section."

I unfold the paper, turn to the sports page and see myself above the fold, running, passing the finish line.

"This is me beating the record."

"Read what's printed below the photo. The credit."

_Isabella Swan._

"She got them to run the article by submitting the picture. They interviewed your coach because of it."

"How do you know that?"

"She left a message at the office explaining it. And she said, 'Sir-" he puts a hand on my shoulder "-please let Edward know to expect a call for an interview.'"

I can't help but smile. And it's not only because I now know what Bella had planned, or because of the interview, or because of my picture in the paper, but also because she called my father "Sir."

I look up from the paper, from Isabella's name in print under my picture, to see my father also smiling. Is he proud?

"I know what she's doing," he says.

"What?"

"She's trying to befriend me."

"Is it working?"

"Does it matter? Has anything I've said mattered?"

"To her it does."

He starts walking again. I fold the paper up, tucking it under my arm the way he had, and follow.

"Recently I've been reminded of what it's like to be eighteen."

"Victoria's mom?" We follow the curve where the hill starts to climb. It gets shadier.

"She's bad. Fifteen years of addiction. I don't know if - it's not impossible but the odds are against her. And you start thinking about what could've been done differently."

We're getting closer to the creek. From here it sounds like car tires rolling over wet streets. I stop. I stare at the ground until my father interrupts to ask what's wrong. There's mud from yesterday's rain to the right and big ants crawling over a huge rock to the left. Watching the ants, I ask, "Are you her father?"

"Edward." He says it fast, shock in his voice. "Son. No. The fact that you even have to ask me that..." His eyes blaze into me. "You asked me once if I could admit that I was wrong one time. Aside from the operating room, and Esme, I think I've been wrong most of my life."

Hearing him say this reminds me of what Bella said to me about how you can think people aren't listening to you, but they really are. Still, I'm confused about this change in my father, everything from his demeanor to his clothes.

"What's going on, Dad?"

He slides his hands into his pockets. "Someone from your past is in trouble and you start to remember who you once were. She came to me, told me about her pregnancy. Victoria thinks I'm the only one she told. And knowing Char, I believe that. Char was in tears not knowing what to do. And what did I do for her? I offered her money. I wrote her a check for three thousand dollars and told her to use what she needed of it for an abortion and the rest for whatever she wanted."

The thought of Victoria's mom getting an abortion, the thought of no Victoria, and at my father's encouragement, I can't look him in the eye. "Obviously she didn't go through with it."

"Nope. And she didn't take the money either. She might've just been looking for moral support and I thought I was fixing it by giving her money." His voice has grown harsher, and for once he's not aiming this tone at me. "I'd have given her more if she needed it. And now look at her."

The way he says this, the tone in his voice—I cringe over what Victoria might have seen.

His eyes are dampening, like the tears are lining up. He won't let them out, though. I already know this. He rubs at his forehead, and I start wondering if he wishes he'd brought more to drink with him. I study him. She didn't take the money. He said it. He has to remember what he said about how everyone will take money if it's there for the taking.

"So yeah, I guess you can say I've been wrong plenty."

I rub it in. I can't stop myself. "Then you have to admit it. Not everyone's after money. Right? Just like Isabella never was."

"I admit that there are some things that some people hold in higher regard than they do money."

"Like, _love_?"

"And pride. It hadn't occurred to me, until I met Victoria, that I may have insulted Char by writing her that check. I thought I was helping. She took off. I didn't hear from her. I had no idea where she went. And I didn't look. Your mom was pregnant with you. My attention was on her. Despite what you might think, I loved Elizabeth."

"And despite what you might think, I love Isabella."

"I know." He pauses, tugging at the neckline of his shirt. "I only hope that she loves you as much as you love her. Believe me or don't believe me, but my only intention was to see that you didn't go through what I went through."

"But either way, that should be my decision to make. Not yours. You don't even know how much you hurt her. Trying to protect me from her?" I shake my head, getting pissed all over again. "She's a person. She needed protection from _you_. The things you said right to her face. You called her garbage. You made her cry. You know that? And what was your problem with her then? We weren't even dating yet. And it wasn't like we were even near getting married. Was it because I bought her that camera? All because of that? It was like pulling teeth just to get her to take it from me, and then you called her trash, and she gave it back to me. God, you're so..." I blink a few times until the burn behind my eyes goes away.

His palms push against the sides of his face, sliding up until the heels of his hands are pressing against his temples. He closes his eyes and when he pulls his hands away, they open. "Edward, of all the girls without money, you had to pick Charlie Swan's daughter."

"Why does that matter? She could be anyone's daughter. And why are we back on money?"

"I knew Charlie, growing up, and I wouldn't exactly have called him an upstanding guy. I wouldn't have put it past him or his daughter to go after money."

"When did you know him?"

"High school."

I can't help my laugh. "And he couldn't have changed since then? Why not? You did, right? Maybe while you were becoming worse or whatever, he was getting better. After Isabella and I had a fight once, Charlie warned me not to hurt her. And when we broke up, her mom had a hand in that, because Isabella was hurt. By you." I tilt my head and frown at him. "You call that being after money? And look, you know you're not up for any father of the year awards. But Charlie... Forget it."

I start heading back to the pool house.

"I'll apologize to Isabella."

I turn around. He hasn't moved from his spot. "No. I want you to stay away from her. You can wait until she comes to you. But if she doesn't, you just... stay away. You're taking some kind of trip through memory lane. Walking through your regrets. And what happens when you wake up from it? You already brought up money. Even in your state." I gesture up and down at him. From here he looks small. "Just stay away from her."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Thank you for reading. Just one more chapter to go. Thank you for taking this ride with me. It's been a challenge. It's been fun. And you all have been wonderful.


	37. Debris

**Debris**

**Edward**

At her door she's beautiful, hair down, shined-up lips, eyes looking into mine the way they do. I fold her into my arms.

"Edward? My mom's home."

I back Bella into the house, kissing her. She pushes me away, but I keep a tight hold around her waist. Her mom is standing right behind her.

"It's over, Bella."

"What?" She breaks free of my hold, but I catch her hand and put my lips back on hers.

"The sneaking. My dad knows."

"He's okay with us?" Her free hand's on my chest and she's arching back, wide eyes fixed on mine.

"He's staying out of it. It's none of his business."

Our fingers still connected, she leads me up the stairs to her room, both of us ignoring her mom's stare. When the door's closed, I take Bella's face and kiss her good and hard.

"Edward… Edward."

I pull back, sit with her on the bed and tell her about my dad and what went down. And then we kiss until I'm on top of her, hips between her legs, pressing against her, needing her, wanting her, right here even with her mom downstairs, with the door maybe not even locked. There's a charge in me. A rush. There's nothing in my mind but Bella. And she's feeling it, too. I can tell by the way she's responding. As I start pushing away at her shirt, she starts peeling away at mine, and her hand's on my stomach when there's a knock at the door that freezes everything, even our breath, possibly our pumping blood.

"Izzy-B?"

Bella jumps up, straightening her clothes. I stay where I am, lying on my side and other than pressing on my crotch to hide _that_, I'm on this strange high of not wanting to hide anything else.

"Do you have a pen?" Renee asks, and Bella slides her desk drawer open.

"Isn't there one downstairs?"

"None of them work."

Bella offers her mom a pen and Renee scribbles something down on a tablet she's holding. She pushes the door open wider and wags her tablet at me. "Grocery list," she says, as if I asked her what it was. Obviously I didn't ask, which makes me think this pen thing was nothing but an excuse for her to come in here.

I sit up on my forearm. She hands the pen back to Bella and says, "Edward?"

I sit up the rest of the way, hoping she's not about to make me leave, or worse, make me leave without Bella.

"It's good to see you again." She smiles. "We're having enchiladas, will you be staying?"

"Yes, please."

"Okay, but after what I witnessed down in my living room," she says, "this door stays open." Leaving the door open she walks away.

Bella falls back to the bed next to me with the pen still in her hand. She drops it between us. We lie on our sides. I place my hand on her face. "You drive me out of my mind. I was about to have sex with you. You were going to let me."

"Thank God for moms-" She stops. It's abrupt. Brakes slammed. Her eyes widen.

"No, it's okay." My fingers graze her cheek to erase any hesitancy. "What were you going to say?"

"Just, thank God for moms who knock and don't barge in." She rests her head on my shoulder, her arm around me. I feel her squeeze. I kiss her forehead.

Adjusting myself to get comfortable, I slide my hand under her pillow and meet with lavender. I pull it out. "Hasn't come true yet?"

She takes it from me, sniffs it and puts it back under her pillow. "Close," she says. "Give me your hand."

I give it to her and she sits up, writing something on it. It tickles my palm. "What are you doing?"

"You'll see."

She lets go of my hand and while I read what she wrote she writes on her own, and then she shows me hers. Both say "I love you," but the "love" is a heart. She takes my hand and smashes our palms together. "There. Nothing in between. That's my wish."

I shake my head at her, and keep shaking it as I move closer and closer until I'm right in her face, our clasped hands between our chests. I plant kisses all over her lips.

"Now you can never wash that hand again," she says.

"Oh, yeah? Do you know what I do with this hand?" I glance down at my jeans.

"Ew, _Edward_!" She shoots up.

"Just kidding."

Her smile takes up her whole face. "No, you're not." She shoves at my shoulder.

I reach for her elbows, guiding her toward me. "You got my picture in the paper."

She drops down onto her back. I lean over her. Reaching up, she scrapes fingers at my jaw. "Yeah, you know. I try to submit local nature photos, but they get the back-burner unless there's some story to go with it. Sports in this town on the other hand. That's easy. So I sent in some boring picture of some dumb boy and they ate it up."

"You got me an interview."

"Don't let it go to your head." She gives the side of my forehead a couple of taps. "I've seen these track stars who turn into total assholes once they beat a record and get recognized."

"Oh really? Like who?"

"Mike Newton."

"I'm Fig now?"

She laughs. "Fig?"

"It's Jasper's name for him. Fig. As in Fig Newton."

"What's his name for me?"

"Probably something like Sex on Legs, or something else just as sleazy but accurate." I tuck my hand under her waist and pull her against me. Her fingers meet the hair at the back of my neck, nails giving light scratches.

"Hmm. Maybe we should see how accurate my dad sees it over dinner."

"That's just what we need. Another dad trying to rip us up."

"Never." She lifts her head to kiss me.

"Thank you for doing that with the newspaper."

"You deserve it. Plus, I got paid for it."

"And for what you did with my dad."

"I was hoping he would see you clearer."

"And for calling my dad 'Sir.'" We both laugh.

We lie still for a few minutes before I ask her if Max can come to dinner. She says, "Always."

"Come with me to get him."

"In a little while. I want to stay here like this for now."

"Okay." I rub my hand over her shoulder before pulling her face closer. I kiss her. "Hey, Bella?"

"Yeah?"

I pick up her hand, press our written-on palms together, and I look into her eyes, loving their shine. "This is it," I tell her. "Nothing in between."

"Nothing," she says.

* * *

><p><strong>Victoria<strong>

Under the sun, my aunt's hair shines like polished copper as she opens the front door. She calls out "Phil" in a voice I've never heard before, like a timid question, like instead of wondering if he's home, she's wondering if he exists.

She moves inside and I follow, hiding behind her. He doesn't make a sound, but I know he's there, and when I step aside I see that he still hasn't shaved or slept, his brown hair messy, his eyelids puffy. He's not smiling.

"We're home," Aunt Cheri says, and Phil's shoulders relax, a breath streaming out of him like he's been holding it for days, or ever since she left. Maybe, in a way, he had been. If she hadn't come back, maybe he'd still be holding it. When his arms embrace her, they squish her up tight and noises come from his throat like tremors, as if something inside of him is shifting.

He looks at me, tears rimming his eyes and he says he has something for me.

I follow him through the swinging doors to the kitchen. The sunlight beaming through the windows is powerful, brightening the walnut wood of the cabinets. He opens the fridge and pulls out a bouquet of flowers. "They're for you." He holds them out to me.

"You kept them in the fridge?" I take them by their cold bundled stems and push them to my nose. They smell like today's sun and wind, like outside just before my aunt and I stepped into the house.

"Didn't want them to wilt."

Laying the flowers on the counter, I look at him, watching his gaze travel to my aunt and return to me.

"Why don't we go out back?" Aunt Cheri says, her hand on my shoulder, close to my neck. We walk in a line**—**me in the middle—out the back door, and to the porch swing where I sit between the two of them. The ground is dry. Flowers bloom in pinks and purples around the trees, stacked gray stones surrounding them as if holding everything together.

Our feet move in sync against the grass, rocking the swing back and forth. Breeze after breeze shakes through leaves. A flock of birds fly out of a tree all at once, wings flapping. Squinting, I watch them climb the sky.

Nobody says a word, leaving the earth itself to do the talking.

My palms resting on my jeans are beginning to sweat. Phil's hand falls to mine, giving the back of it a squeeze. After a few chest-raising breaths, I turn and look up at him. I look into his eyes, splotchy red over white, light brown irises lined in darker brown. Small pupils. I look so closely, I see myself reflected back.

"You're my dad." Even though I blink several times in a row, the tears still slip out. "You're my dad."

He nods, and as he talks, he continues to nod. "I couldn't be prouder of a daughter."

Aunt Cheri pats my leg and in a shaky voice tells us she's going in to make tea. The swing rocks, her side of it left feeling cold and too big as she gets up and goes inside.

Phil's hand is slow to move off mine and his arm circles around me, resting over my shoulders. I stare forward. He gives me two tugs, two squeezes into his side. I lean against him, letting my head fall to his shoulder.

"My daughter." He says it in a whisper so quiet it's like he's saying it just for him.

I feel him shudder with a silent cry. A cry of relief it seems as he lets out a sigh.

"I wish we knew all along," I say, still looking out at our yard and beyond it, to where the trees grow gigantic. To where I used to go searching for the man in the one room house in my dreams. I think about how underneath everything in my life was a lie, and how growing up, my childhood and my teenage years were built on top of it, layer after layer, trying to balance. But now the lie has turned to sand, and maybe someday it will be ash, and maybe someday, maybe, it'll be nothing.

"So do I."

"I hate my mother."

He doesn't say a thing, doesn't tell me shush, or not to hate my mother, or anything. I think he'll let me hate her if I want to. Maybe he hates her, too.

A cloud wafts in front of the sun and it isn't until the cloud drifts on, sunlight hitting our faces again, that Phil talks.

"I want you to know something, Victoria," he says and I sit up, turning to face him. "Your life here, living with your aunt and me, you were always like a daughter to me." He clears his throat and straightens up. "What I mean to say is that knowing you're biologically my daughter, it doesn't _change_ how I feel about you. I loved you just the same before I knew. I love you the same now, it just means something a little different." He tells me it's similar to when you have this near fully-formed idea, all the nuts and bolts are there. The blueprints. But for some reason it's not coming together. He points a finger at the air and turns it in a loop. "Then this last notion materializes, and it all makes sense. The idea is complete. It's as if something has been confirmed, you know? Rather than a bombshell that's been dropped."

I sort of know what he means. Even though it wasn't the same for me, I get that it was like this for him. For me it was much more like a bombshell dropped.

"I understand you must be feeling a little lost and betrayed, and you have every right to feel that way. What I think would be best though is for us to pick ourselves up, brush ourselves off, and look to the future. Not think about what could've, would've, should've been, but just think about-"

"What is?"

"What is."

.

My aunt and Phil decide that the next couple of days**—**Friday after school and Saturday**—**will be dedicated just to us, just to family. We eat dinner at the table together; we eat vanilla bean ice cream out of the container with big serving spoons. I wonder, as I take the carton from him and dig my spoon in, if there will ever come a time when I think of him as Dad, not Phil or Uncle Phil. Just Dad.

Sometimes, like now as my aunt talks about having the kitchen remodeled, I find myself looking at him, staring, maybe in the same way he once stared at me. But when I catch his eye, he smiles instead of running away.

After the tornado my life has been this past week, it's Sunday before I get to spend any time with James. He drives us to the west end of the forest, where we're meeting Edward and Isabella. We'll walk from there to the spot Isabella's always wanted to go, the place with the slick black rock and where the waterfall is to the distant left but so loud that after you leave you still hear its crashing, even in your bed.

It's a long hike, and there's no trail. Sometimes the space is wide enough for us to walk together, but most of the time, it's James and me in front and Edward and Isabella behind us. After a long uphill climb Isabella asks how much longer and if James and I even know where we're going. I yell over my shoulder for her to stop complaining since it was her idea to come here and she jumps on my back.

I screech and she falls off. "You're going to break all your cameras."

"Look again," she says from the ground, pointing at Edward who has her bag slung over his shoulder. He reaches a hand toward her to help her up. "He's nice, right? But I'm nice too because I agreed only to bring one camera just to keep it lighter." She kisses the side of his shoulder.

"What's the nicest thing he's done for you?" I ask Isabella, slipping my arm through hers. We've come to a small clearing of low plants and ferns, easy to step over, and we're able to walk in a row.

"He likes to break my new heels in for me. It's some kind of ladies' shoes fetish he has, but it saves my feet from pain." Edward yells, _no way, _and she admits he could barely fit his toes in her shoes.

"What's one of the best things James has done for you?" she asks.

I say that James once wore my fairy wings. They laugh. They don't believe me. I look up at James and he's looking down at me. I grasp his hand. He nuzzles his nose into my cheek.

Even after our path narrows again, Isabella and I keep throwing questions back and forth at each other about James and Edward, which starts to drive the guys crazy.

We come to the river, where the wind is stronger and the air colder, and climb on top of a huge smooth hill of rock. I sit between James' legs and Isabella sits across from us next to Edward. I ask Isabella what her favorite feature of Edward's is. James groans behind me, tired of this game.

She drops her head to Edward's shoulder. "Um..."

"I know what she'd say," Edward says.

"Don't go there, man," James says.

"Nah, I mean, I think she'd say my arms."

I see that she's touching his arm now, pushing her hand up under his sleeve, as he says this.

"It's his smile." She fingers over his lips, her chin on his shoulder, her eyes raised to his. "He has the best smile. You never smile for no reason. You always mean it when you smile." She drops her gaze and I can almost feel the heat in her cheeks as they redden.

Edward isn't smiling now. The expression on his face is so serious as he brings his index finger down her cheek, and as she's still facing their laps, he's looking at her with such intensity that I have to look away. I can tell out of the corner of my eye that they're kissing and while I think it might be quick, it doesn't stop until James interrupts.

"Actually, I've seen him smile when he's pissed off, too."

Edward laughs, breaking from Isabella. "That's true. Sometimes when people like Newton piss me off."

James and I talk Edward and Isabella into roadtripping with us after graduation. They'll only come for two weeks, though. By then, Max will be home from basketball camp. They'll fly out from wherever we happen to be at that time.

Right now we have no idea where we'll be or when. Our destination: a place none of us have ever been before. That's all we know.

James takes my elbow and pulls me to stand with him. We walk opposite the waterfall toward a corral of trees so dense it seems nothing could fit through, but we do, caging ourselves inside.

"What are we going to do when school's out?" I ask, teasing him. He has me by the shoulders, pushing me up against a trunk.

"Wrong question." My face is in his hands and he's staring down at me. "The question is, what am I going to do right now?" Above us I hear the rustle of the trees waving their branches while James stares, his eyes moving between mine and then down to my chin and back up to my eyes.

"What _are_ you going to do right now?" I lift my knee, the sole of my shoe resting on the back of the tree.

"Kiss you 'til the sun goes down."

"Only until then?" I ask, closing my eyes as his face moves in.

"At least until then," he whispers on my lips.

Still holding my face, he kisses me. His tongue finds mine, his hands trailing down my arms to my hips and he presses into me. I sigh out a moan, my foot sliding down the trunk of the tree to the ground. And the ground is the river and the water's warm. I'm floating away and James is with me and our hands are clasped and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him. And all that's left is what we leave behind, in our trail, in our wake. Even after we disappear with the current, we've left our mark.

We kiss until the sun is down and the moon is up, my arms holding around his neck, his hands on my ribs under my sweater, his body flush with mine. I love the way the tree is digging into my back. James pulls away, breathing hard, his breath on my face. I bring him in close again.

"You're my one," he says into the kiss. My knees weaken. The right words can do that just as well as the right kiss.

When we get back to the rock, Isabella is snapping pictures of Edward as he's holding his hand out as if to say, "Give it to me. It's my turn." But I can't hear either of them with the noisy waterfall in the background, and they can't hear me approaching, so I snatch the camera from Isabella and push her toward Edward. I take pictures of them hugging, trying to get them off-center, the way Isabella taught me. Edward lifts her up, her legs draping over his arm. The waterfall shines in the night behind them.

When I stop trying to get them in perfect focus and just look at them through the lens, they look different, like shadows or moving silhouettes. They look like two people who can't be touched.

I turn to James who has his palm on my lower back. At what point do a group of friends cross the line of friendship over to family? Looking again through the viewfinder at Isabella and Edward, James' hand on me, I know it's this point. Right here. We're family. And this moment, it's poetry.

I've heard poetry referred to as everything, the flow of life**—**living and breathing and growing on earth. But for me, that's too general. Poetry, to me, are the things**—**good or bad, pretty or ugly**—**that make us _feel_. Sometimes you feel something so deeply you can't find the words to express it, but maybe you do your best; maybe you use the moon as sadness or fear or something you relate to and where you find your strength, shining bright amid thick black; maybe the sun is your smile or your hopefulness and the people you love; maybe the stars, specks of light stamped in the dark, are your future. Why else would they be wished upon? Sometimes you want to do nothing but speak about the feeling, and the words flow out of you as if there could never be enough words, yet they seem never-ending. Like the flame and the sparks of a growing fire that's bigger and longer-lasting than you'll ever be.

It's this moment right here. The four of us. The earth's the poet and we're the poem.

.

Our bags are packed in James' trunk and waiting for us throughout our graduation ceremony. My mom is here. From where I am on the bleachers, I make eye contact with her as she stands in the back near the gym doors. She said she once had dreams for us. She couldn't reach them, couldn't even get near them. I close my eyes making up a poem about people who get lost, who make wrong turn after wrong turn in a maze of thorns they'll never see the end of. As much as they may try to find their way, they won't. I can't think of anything lonelier. I wonder if people like them even notice the moon.

My mom's gone before the rest of us exit. Carlisle tells me that she's heading back to Olympia, still on the treatment program. I nod and walk away, grateful for the information, but not wanting to have this conversation, here of all places.

I find Cheri and Phil, neither of whom mention my mom. They hug me congratulations; I hug them goodbye. They know what my plans are. I didn't lie this time, and while they tried to talk me out of going I kept saying it was only one month, only four weeks. Phil has flowers for me again. I joke with him, asking if he kept them in the fridge. We have at least made it to a place where we can joke about some things, laugh about others, but most serious conversations are stilted**—**mainly because of me. It wasn't until late one night as I lay in my bed that I started to realize I felt guilty for ever calling Phil Mud and the reason why. But the guilt, traveling up my spine irritated me, made me angry. Angry at Phil, whether rational or irrational, I didn't know. But it crept up on occasion in the dark like a goblin. By morning it was gone, but I was sure it would return.

When Phil hugs me outside the gym, he tells me to be careful and to watch over James. He gives me a wink and a tassel tug of my cap. When he pulls James aside, I can only guess that he's saying the same to him regarding me. Or maybe he's giving James some kind of warning, like a father might, like Phil might whether or not he was my biological father.

The four of us**—**Edward, Isabella, James, and I, still in our caps and gowns**—**head toward James' car. Edward picks up Isabella and puts her in the backseat, crawling over her, kissing her. She's not protesting. James and I climb into the front seats. He takes his cap off and tosses it like a Frisbee to the back, letting it land on whomever it lands on.

The engine roars to life. "Time to move forward," James says as he drives out of the parking lot, and we all agree. It's time to move forward.

* * *

><p>AN: Okay, sigh, I'm going to miss this story. I've loved writing it and the experience I've had with all of you readers, hearing/reading your thoughts, some of which have touched me deeply and some helping me to look at my writing/characters from a different perspective.

As always, I thank you for reading. And as most of you are E/B shippers I have to thank you for giving Victoria and James a chance. It amazes me how many of you came to care about them just as much as, if not more than, you do E/B.

Thank you to Madz, my beta, who is always so wonderful, giving my story careful reads, asking questions that make me think and re-think, and rewrite/revise to make the story stronger. She also encouraged me to write this story when I was unsure of the plot. I can't thank her enough for that. Thank you to the girls I write with: Dragonfly336, dreaminginnorweigen (thanks for giving this chapter a read just before I posted!), IReenH, moirae, and thimbles (you know what you do for me). They challenge me and support me in a way that is hard to put into words. But I'm sure they know what I mean.

Also, Happy New Year everyone! I hope you enjoyed this journey.

(For those who have asked, Yes, I have more multi-chapter fanfic stories in the works, and a few other one-shots as well.)


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